


The Fields of St. Herve

by Arsenic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-10
Updated: 2006-09-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 16:04:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20969276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Draco's a bit down on his luck.





	The Fields of St. Herve

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from an old myth of St. Herve and the wolf wherein a wolf devours Herve's plow ox. Herve, however, preaches so eloquently that the wolf is moved to make atonement for his sins by serving in the ox's place, and pulls the plow faithfully for Herve. (http://www.wolfsource.org/folklore.html)
> 
> Thanks to ohevet_likro, whoyouinvent and cordelia_v for being willing to take a look and see if this was even post-worthy. Double thanks for helping clean it up a bit.

Draco has marks that he hides. It's not always easy, particularly in the summer, but he has good, solid British weather and the wizarding penchant for robes on his side. Most days, either of those is enough. Also in his corner is the fact that in the wake of his father's--and most of his extended family's--execution for Crimes Against the British Wizarding Population, people tend to cut Draco a wide berth and look steadfastly in the other direction when they see him in the street.

That suits Draco just fine.

Severus knew about the marks, every last one of them. Though he never trusted Draco enough to say the words, "Voldemort's a great big git and I went off him a while back and never really came back around," he cared about Draco enough to say before things went too far, "Miss Bulstrode was headed toward an Advanced Potions Degree at my recommendation. She'll be able to provide for you."

Draco said, "Shut it, Professor, I'll stick with your product," and "Tell me what to do."

Severus, being Severus, kept Draco as far from the center of things as possible. Not far enough for Draco to miss Severus being tortured to death in front of him. Voldemort had always picked the worst times to make meetings mandatory.

Draco has marks he doesn't need to hide as well, those that hide themselves just fine all on their own.

Most days, he thinks those are the worst.

He goes to Millicent because despite the fact that he called her Bull Face for much of their adolescence, if Severus told him to go to her, she'll help.

When he shows up at her door she looks unimpressed but she doesn't flinch back from him or skitter away like most people. Draco isn't going to pretend like he doesn't respect that. He says, "Millicent."

"What, no clever nicknames?"

She's actually, to Draco's endless surprise, grown a bit into herself. She's no great beauty, that's for certain, but much of what was pure bulk all throughout their school years is now muscle, and she's finally found a stylist who figured out that her hair was meant to be short and punky, rather than keeping it long and shapeless. Draco thinks she also might have seen someone about small surface face reconstruction--her nose is less snout-like than he remembers, and her lips more shapely. That could, however, simply be the results of a late sprout of puberty. She was sixteen when he last saw her; they are both nearing nineteen now, and three years can make a surprising amount of difference.

Draco knows they have on him. "I'll sound a bit thick if I apologize for that, won't I?"

"More than a bit," she says without giving an inch.

"Tell me what I can say."

"I suppose that depends on how big the favor you're about to ask me for is."

"Huge." Terrifyingly so.

Her eyes darken a bit. "Who sent you?"

"Professor Snape."

She stands back. "You'd best come inside."

Draco finds it morbidly funny that even from the grave Severus can get him into all the best places. He steps inside and says, "I know it doesn't help, but I am sorry. I was sort of a stupid blighter as a kid."

"Sort of?" Millicent asks.

Name calling is a relatively small offense when it comes to the list that Draco has compiled at this point in his life. "I really am sorry."

She sighs and folds her arms over her chest. Her robes are a lot less shabby than they used to be. Draco knows she's on some sort of particularly prestigious fellowship, but it hasn't occurred to him until just now everything which that implies. "You're really good at this, then?"

"Among the best." Her voice is hard but he can hear the glints of both pride and insecurity lurking beneath. "What did you need, Draco? I really do have things to be doing."

Draco came here intending to tell her, intending to ask her help but now that the moment has come it's hard to find the words. He silences them almost as well as he hides his marks. Finally, he chokes free a soft, "Professor Snape suggested that you had the skill to provide a monthly dose of Wolfsbane. And I had hopes that you would be discreet."

Millicent's bark of laughter is horrifying in the wake of this confession, but her next words are only, "Oh, for-, sit down before I have to scrape you off my floor."

Draco takes a seat. Her furniture is solid and well-crafted but worn and far from the height of fashion. Draco finds it to be the only comforting thing he's yet dealt with in his trip here.

Millicent walks over and takes a seat across from him. "It's expensive, Draco. The ingredients, and I'll need compensation for my time. I'm in a program, I don't have a whole bunch of extra time to spend on a potion that takes a full thirty hours to brew all told."

"Just tell me what the cost is going to be."

Millicent is silent for a while. Draco watches as she adds it all up in her head. "Fifteen galleons for the ingredients, another ten for my time."

Draco clenches his jaw so as not to make a sound. Twenty-five galleons a month is a considerable amount given the trouble he's having finding a job. The aspersion cast on the Malfoy name is enough to contend with, but monthly three-day sabbaticals are pretty noticeable in the wizarding world and Draco doesn't even have a completed education to recommend him. "That's fair."

"To be delivered on the first of every month."

Draco nods.

"I don't suppose you want this in writing?"

Draco really, really doesn't. "Your word is good enough."

Her, "All right," is a little bit snide.

Draco can't help asking, "Um. Why are you doing this?"

For a second Millicent looks as if she's not going to answer. In the end, however, she asks, "You know my father was a Death Eater?"

Not one of the ones in the inner circle, but, "Yes, he was killed during the First Years."

"His wife had just given birth to a daughter and he was re-thinking his priorities. Evidently, Voldemort had plans to kill my mother and me too, just as an example of what happened to those who chose family over service but Professor Snape was able to persuade him to another, less permanent punishment."

Draco knows what "other punishments" consisted of, knows that Millicent's father was no doubt made to watch as his wife was tortured and raped in front of him, that her mother was probably forced to witness her husband's death. Worse, it was entirely likely that Severus, having been the one to suggest "mercy" had been given the honor of carrying the punishment out. Draco doesn't ask about that. He doesn't want to know the twists of Millicent's own understandings of gratitude. It is enough that she owes Severus, and that for that, she will help him.

"Also," she says softly, "he got me here."

Draco nods. That's something he understands entirely. Here may not be as stable or good for him as it is for Millicent, but it's alive, and that's. . .something. He says, "Twenty-five galleons. First of every month."

She says, "I'll see you then."

*

Severus left everything to Draco in his will. Unfortunately, by the time the Ministry was done punishing an already dead man, everything included a library of books and Severus' collection of potions ingredients. Spinner's End was auctioned off, and his savings had gone toward reparations to the families of those who had lost loved ones to Death Eaters. Although he doesn't like to think about it, Draco's pretty sure the only reason he got to keep what he has is due some intervention, likely on his cousin's part. She took several curses on the way to Voldemort's defeat and was eventually awarded an Order of Merlin and some serious say within the Auror department.

Tonks has never said anything and Draco has never asked, but if she ever comes to him for a favor, he has no doubt he'll owe her one.

Draco keeps the items in a vault at Gringotts. It was Severus'. It is now in his name. Evidently the Ministry saw no problem with allowing him an empty vault.

Draco knows that some of the potions ingredients and books will sell for a decent amount, but at the moment he hasn't yet been able to bring himself to sell anything. He always keeps that in his mind as a last resort. Winter is coming on, and Draco has started making a list of buyers, people he knows, people who will respect having something of Severus'. The list isn't very long.

Draco's pretty sure his time at his current job is close to an end. He clerks for an owl shop off of Diagon. The owls don't judge and the clientele is of a lower class than his old circle, which means he doesn't see many people he knows. It's been nearly four months, though, and Draco could see the suspicion in the owner's eyes when he asked for the sixteenth through the eighteenth off. Draco stayed long enough at his previous job to be fired. He's trying to avoid that type of humiliation a second time.

At night before he goes back to his flat he can generally manage to swipe a _Prophet_ from the rubbish somewhere. The stories are still absolute bunk but the classifieds are all right, and Draco has learned what sorts of jobs will accept a person without a diploma. Draco yearns for a job somewhere like Gringotts, where the management won't care one way or the other about his ailment so long as he brings in profit, but Gringotts' clerks are exclusively goblin and the other jobs on offer require not only a diploma but full-level mastery of the sort that largely involves extra training.

Owl shops are nice but anything that carries kneazles or crups is out. They get all riled up in his presence. His last two jobs have been with owl shops and Draco figures he's probably running dry on that option. There's only so many owls being sold on the isles.

Draco makes small ticks with a pen next to things that look tolerable, and as though they'll manage to keep him in rent, food and Wolfsbane for at least a few months. Four months is a lucky run, and Draco knows it. He's only had the bite for a little less than three years, but he's learned the rules well enough that it might have been his whole life.

There's an ice cream shop in the wizarding section of Kent, a robes boutique outside of Guilford, and a broom store at Ambleside, all looking for help. It's not ideal--he knows he'll look awful--but he can use the days during the full to Apparate out to each of them and see about procuring an interview. He knows he won't be able to get any other time off.

He thinks the ice cream shop might be the best. The idea of free food is too enticing to care exactly what kind of food it is. New robes would be brilliant too, but even discounted, that's not the sort of thing Draco can afford to spend on these days. A broom is so out of the question that Draco nearly laughs.

He doesn't really feel like smiling.

He curls up in bed and doesn't think about all the people he misses, or how exactly he plans to get his diploma when education costs are so extravagant, or how he remembers when sleep was something that would just wash over him without question or complaint.

Most of all, he doesn't think about the way his arm still stings, even though the men who inflicted the wounds are both dead, one at Potter's hands, one at Severus'.

Maybe, if he can afford it, he'll ask Millicent for some pain salve.

Ironically, it's this thought that makes him laugh.

*

Draco always has the same nightmare two nights before the full. It's as though his brain is trying to warn him, just in case he hasn't noticed that he feels like he's been hit by someone's ultra-powerful, ridiculously prolonged entrail-expelling curse.

Sometimes Draco thinks that would be more fun than having to do this every month, having to know what is coming again, waking to the feel of Grayback's teeth in him, of the wolf on him, of his own terror every bit as present and pressing as it was at that moment.

The morning after the nightmare his boss says, "You're looking a bit peaky."

Draco says, "Haven't been sleeping well," because a lie that's closest to the truth is always the best sort of lie.

"I suppose it's a good thing you've a few days coming to you, then," his boss says, with an off sort of tone and Draco thinks he'd better get himself one of those jobs.

When the full comes he goes to the shack on Hogwarts' grounds. Severus told him all its secrets. It's the safest place Draco can think of to go, and overwhelmingly, it's kept him safe. He installed chains after his first time, when he'd woken up bleeding so badly he thought he'd have no choice but to get himself to Mungo's.

It's torture, being chained as the wolf, but it's better than that alternative.

As he locks himself in, Draco comforts himself with the thought that this is the last time he will have to do this. Millicent is going to help him out. All he has to do is get her the money.

He wishes it were Severus, but if wishes were laid out like crackers at a Christmas table, Draco wouldn't be a werewolf and neither his mother nor Severus would have died screaming.

The click of the chains as they lock into place always sounds louder than it can realistically be. Draco curls up as much as he's able. It's cold in the shack, it will be until he changes. Then he won't much think about cold, just about how he can smell the forest and freedom and how _hungryhungryhungry_ he is.

That last won't change when he wakes up.

Every month Draco thinks about walking up to the school and throwing himself on the mercy of Headmistress McGonagall. He knows she took on Adrian Pucey as the new Charms professor after Flitwick's death. She never liked Draco, but Severus respected her as being fair-minded and Draco is pretty sure she'd give him a meal.

If he plans on going out on interviews in the afternoon tomorrow, the idea becomes something to seriously mull over. He needs every advantage he can get. No matter what he'll look less-than-well tomorrow. A full meal might help with the death-walking look that he knows he tends to have when coming out of a transformation.

Draco files the thought away. It will depend, he knows, on how brave he wakes up feeling. With his insides and outsides invisibly shredded, bravery--which was never his strong suit to begin with--is rarely something he has in abundance. That was Severus' department.

Severus stayed with him, that first transformation. Stayed even though Draco could smell the fear on him. As a wolf the scent was so powerful he wanted to retch. Severus stayed though, trusting in his own potion and in Draco. The scent, like Severus' fear, had slowly dissipated over the first few months.

Draco hates the chains, and the pain, and the loss of self, but most of all he hates the loneliness. The waking up shivering and hurting and disoriented and having to take care of it all for himself. Severus would always feed him a bit of chocolate, splay his hands over Draco's quivering muscles until the heat of human contact caused him to relax.

Draco loses himself in the thought of those hands until the night and the moon and his body rip from him the mind that can recall those sorts of things, and replace it with one that knows only hunger and need.

*

He goes up to the school the next morning. He waits at the door, since it obviously has no interest in letting him inside. Hagrid finds him there, coming in from whatever it is groundskeepers do before they head up to breakfast.

Hagrid sizes him up. Draco feels very, very small. Hagrid's incredulous, "Malfoy?" doesn't help with that.

Draco's searching for the words that will get him into the castle. "Sorry for trying to get your pet killed and rooting for you to be fired at least twice," doesn't seem likely to help in this instance, plus it has the danger of coming off as flippant, which it very well might be. Unfortunately, "Good morning," seems equally risky.

In the end he doesn't have to say anything, because the half-breed looks him up and down, says, "Yer lookin' to need some warmin' up," and pushes the doors open for Draco.

Draco takes a step inside and says, "Thank you," quietly, risking the sob that really, really wants to choke out of his throat.

"C'mon then," Hagrid says. He pushes at Draco a bit.

Draco's tired and cold and sore so it takes him a second to realize, "This isn't the way to the Great Hall."

"Nah, Poppy'll be wantin' a look at ye firs'."

Draco turns on his heel. "No, that's really all right, I just had something I needed to discuss with the headmistress."

Hagrid turns him right back around, and even were he at his best, Draco would have no chance against the man. "'Eadmistress'll still be 'ere when ye finish, I reck'n."

Draco contemplates pulling his wand on the larger man, but that will only draw attention to something actually being wrong. He traipses down the hall to where Madam Pomfrey is sitting in her infirmary. She looks up at the entrance, unsurprisingly seeing Hagrid first. "Did you need something, I was just about-"

Whatever she was just about to do evidently isn't all that important in the face of a somewhat wan Draco Malfoy standing in her domain. She says, "Mr. Malfoy."

"Found'im on the steps," Hagrid tells her, as though Draco is some stray who wandered on by. Draco winces at the accuracy of the comparison.

"What seems to be the problem, Mr. Malfoy?"

"I just needed to speak to the headmistress. I told the. . .professor that, but he insisted. I'm fine."

"Hagrid," she says, standing and coming over to them, "why don't you head on down to breakfast? We'll be there in a bit."

Hagrid doesn't look thrilled at this suggestion, but Draco suspects he can't appear all too threatening at the moment, so Hagrid turns around and lumbers away. Pomfrey closes the doors with a wave of her wand. "The headmistress said she suspected someone was using the shack again."

Draco tries not to show any reaction, but he can feel his eyes widen with slight panic. Pomfrey makes a face. "Sit down, boy."

Draco nearly stumbles over to the closest bed. "I've kept it a secret from most people."

"Well, most people haven't treated werewolves for an extended period of time, have they?" She rifles through a few of the potions in her cabinet and comes back levitating three. She floats the first over to him. "Drink."

He does. It's like heaven going down, even with the bad taste. He can feel strained muscles releasing their tension, scrapes knitting themselves, bruises dissolving. The second one warms him and the third heightens his energy level. He brings the bottle down from his lips. "Thank you."

"Nearly six months the headmistress has been thinking that place is occupied. Probably means you've been sneaking back at least eight."

"I'm sorry," Draco says, and he is, for everything, not the least his need of somewhere to hide. "I've managed to find a source for the Wolfsbane. This was my last month."

"Thank Merlin for that." She puts her hand underneath his chin and tips his face up so that they are looking straight into each other's eyes. "Why've you never come up before?"

_Werewolf,_ Draco thinks. _Slytherin._ "The doors wouldn't let me in this morning."

"The password's 'torridon'."

"Why?"

"I have no idea, means something to the Headmistress, I'm sure- Oh," she says, catching sight of his expression, "because we lost enough children to the war. I won't be loosing more to our own inflexibility."

"I'm not a child."

"When you're my age, dear, nineteen is mere infancy." She draws him off the edge of the bed and makes sure he can stand without problem. "Go on, now. Down to breakfast. You can chat with the Headmistress there."

Draco looks at where her hands are grasping his, unafraid even in the knowledge of his secret. He feels unaccountably ashamed. "Thank you," he tells her, and does everything in his power not to run for the Great Hall.

*

McGonagall is either warned by Hagrid, or just really good at taking things in stride, because she doesn't so much as look twice at Draco, just motions to a spot at the Slytherin table. Draco sits and food appears.

Draco _loves_ house elves.

He makes himself eat slowly. He defied Severus' instructions on that one time and lived to regret it. It takes him long enough that he's still eating when the students file out of the Hall and onto their classes.

Draco isn't terribly surprised when McGonagall takes the spot across from him at the table. "Mr. Malfoy."

He swallows. This is no time to be talking with his mouth full. "Headmistress."

"So you're my trespasser."

"The shack isn't-"

"Oh, but it is. Headmaster Dumbledore made sure of that some time ago. I can imagine you know why."

"I'm sorry," Draco says, thinking that this arrangement with Millicent had really better work out or he's going to have to figure out another plan for the full.

She ignores his apology. "Why did you not just ask?"

"I'd ask you to appreciate that the oversight seems somewhat foolish to me as well, now."

"Humor an old woman. Tell me your reasoning anyhow."

Draco sets his fork down neatly on the rim of his plate. "If it were you, would you go to a Slytherin with all the power and tell her your most dangerous secret?"

"I suppose that would depend on what I thought of that Slytherin's code of honor."

"I-" Draco falters, "I didn't think of it that way."

"Obviously," she says, her voice as dry as his throat feels. Draco fiddles with the end of his knife, also laid out on the plate. She asks, "I don't suppose you finished your education elsewhere?"

"I was slightly busy," Draco says, in what he hopes is a light tone. "And nowhere else was giving out credits for actions taken in the war." Even had they been, they wouldn't have been for the sorts of things in which Draco had taken part.

"Employment must be something of an issue."

"I manage." There are certain people from whom Draco is willing to take pity. Gryffindors don't enter into that category. Or Hufflepuffs, for that matter.

"If the fancy so strikes you, I am certain we could work out a deal. Tuition for some sort of service."

Draco is so tempted it hurts. He has rent to pay, though, and Wolfsbane to purchase, and Hogwarts classes are during the days. He wonders if perhaps, when he has to leave this next job, he can look for a night-time position and take her up on her offer. "Service?"

She looks thoughtful. "You were a bright student. Perhaps you could aid some of the professors in their secondary duties or something of the sort. As I said, we could work it out to our mutual satisfaction."

"Perhaps. . .perhaps next term." Draco doesn't really think so, but it feels so good to hope for something that he can't stop himself from saying the words.

"Yes, it would be better for you to start then rather than in the middle of this one anyhow."

Draco says, "Thank you for breakfast," because to thank her for anything more might cause his voice to crack, and really, he's had enough mortification for one morning. Although, surprisingly, less than he would have expected.

"Any month," she says, before standing and sweeping from the room. She hasn't Severus' old trick of seeming as though he were literally gliding, but she has a magnificence of her own, and Draco isn't stupid enough to ignore the significance of that.

*

The lady who runs the ice cream store is less than impressed by the way Draco turns slightly green upon seeing her product. He tries to explain that he's down with a bit of a nasty cold but he can tell that her mollification is entirely superficial. He doesn't think explaining to her that heavily sugared products at times make him nauseated around the full will help his case. The woman who interviews him at the robes shop keeps eyeing his own apparel with vaguely concealed disdain. Draco hasn't got any well-versed excuses for that.

He's nervous by the time he reaches the Apparitive coordinates given by the broom shop. The coordinates don't land him in a building or even particularly near to one. Rather, he has to make his way up a stone path. The shop isn't really much of a commercial-looking type place. Rather it's one of the numerous gray stone houses Ambleside supports farther away from the town than one is generally located. Draco twists his neck a bit before walking in and somehow isn't surprised to see the view spread out before him, what seems like the entire town of Ambleside and, in the distance, the edges of Lake Windermere.

The ad didn't say anything about the shop being a specialty store, but Draco imagines it must be, because this isn't a spot that people are going to just stroll on past. He drags his eyes away from the promise of blue laid flat on the horizon, takes a deep breath, and steps inside the store. The place is neat in that way that betrays just how many cleaning spells a person uses on average, rather than keeping elves or cleaning by oneself. There are pictures of different quidditch teams on the walls, teams from everywhere in the world. Draco tries to determine some kind of pattern or favoritism, but so far as he can see, there's nothing there. A few of the posters have team member's signatures. Draco notices Viktor Krum is one of the autographs. He doesn't see anyone so he says, "Hello? I'm here about the job. Is anyone around?"

A voice that sounds familiar calls back, "Yeah, give me a second, I'm just-"

There's the sound of clinking pottery-ware, and Harry Potter appears carrying a tea tray with scones and watercress sandwiches and two matching tea cups. To his credit, although he stops dead in his tracks, Potter doesn't do anything melodramatic, like drop the tray. Instead he says, "Malfoy?" as though he might be mistaken in his identification of the man standing in the middle of his shop.

Draco bites his lip and does his best not to cry, which is all he really wants to do. All things being relative, the day had started out particularly well. Draco figures he should have known that was a bad sign. "Potter. I'll just, ah-" and he turns, heading for the door.

"Malfoy."

Draco stops at his name. Potter asks, "You came about the job?"

Draco looks around a bit, and finally notes what he didn't in his initial glance. There are no brooms on display. "It's not exactly the kind of store you come to window shop at, is it?"

"No, right." There's a second before Harry says, "Look, you're here and I threw in a second cup, so I might as well interview you."

Draco hasn't had anything to eat since breakfast, and his metabolism during the full is three times the speed at which it normally runs. Potter's tea smells light and fresh and even though Draco knows the smart thing to do is just keep walking out the door and down the hill and to where he can pop out of existence, he says, "That would be. . . thanks."

Draco follows Potter to a small room off to the side of the main entrance. It's more window than wall, with a well-crafted golden pine table in the center, surrounded by an ash-color sofa and loveseat. The room is somehow masculine and tasteful at the same time, and the only way Draco is able to reconcile these things with Potter in his head at all is that the room somehow manages to be _cheery_ as well. He supposes it must be all the sunlight. Or perhaps the endless number of simply-framed photos with Weasleys and all sorts of other friendly looking people waving out at Potter.

Potter motions to the loveseat and Draco sits, or rather, melts into it. Potter begins pouring the tea. "This is called, erm, peony white needle white tea. Ron sent it from China. Sounds wonky, I know, but it's really, well-" Potter hands Draco the cup.

Draco takes another second to smell it. It can sound as wonky as it likes, it smells like heaven. His first sip confirms this comparison to be not far off. Not particularly anxious to start an interview that can only end in disappointment, Draco figures if he can stall it might mean a second cup of this stuff. "It's brilliant, isn't it? What's Weasley doing in China?"

"Oh, he's not there anymore. There was a course he was taking. They use metal charming for other sorts of things, naturally, but he thought getting a different perspective couldn't hurt."

"Weasley's also in the quidditch supplies business?"

Potter frowns at this. "Brooms can be used for non-quidditch purposes." He seems to get over the snit, though, because he says, "Yeah, well, he doesn't know that he's going to stick with it, but he rather likes tinkering with the charms, seeing if he can get the balls to perform better. He's evidently brought some really innovative ideas to his employer's roster because the International Quidditch Association has already been talking putting him on an equipment panel for the World Cup this year."

Draco has to admit that he wouldn't have called that of Weasley, but he also has to admit that they didn't know each other very well. Not in that way. "And you're a. . .specialty supply shop?"

"Broom maintenance and repair, mostly. The problems other people can't handle." Potter smiles a smile that's half shy and half proud at this. "Viktor, er, Krum sort of got me in with a lot of the professional teams, so they send me their problems and I get them sorted out. The paperwork's become a nightmare though, that's what the job posting's about. I realize it was a little misleading, but I wanted people who were enthusiastic about brooms. You can, I mean, paperwork's not an issue, right?" Despite the hesitancy in his words, Potter sounds defensive, like maybe all of a sudden Draco's going to point out that he's a Malfoy and Malfoys don't handle paperwork.

There was a time, Draco thinks with more than a hint of wistfulness, when he could have done that. Now he just asks, "You're really offering me the job?"

Potter shrugs. "You were nice about my tea, and I know you're intelligent. Plus, you know a thing or two about brooms yourself. I can always fire you."

Which brings Draco to the real crux of his issue. Can he trust Potter to find out his secret and keep it, well, secret? Because while Draco isn't looking forward to getting fired again, he can handle that so long as Potter doesn't take it into his mind to make it impossible for Draco to find another job. Draco asks, "Might I have some more tea?"

Potter pours. "You look like somebody beat you with a couple of spell-reinforced logs."

Draco wants to say something back, but Potter basically looks good. His eyes are a bit haunted, but these days, whose aren't? "Job hunting, you know." Potter probably doesn't.

"Take the job. It's decent wages. Not fantastic, but getting better as business picks up, and at the very least you'll get to finish off the tea with me."

Draco knows he should just take the job and worry about everything else at a later point. He can't help asking, "Why are you offering?"

Potter's smile is lopsided, a little bit painful. "As it turns out, compassion feels much better than hatred. Also, it's easier to sustain. And I'm pants at paperwork. At this rate, I'll go out of business due my own inability to file, which would just be humiliating."

Draco has had very little experience with compassion, but what little he's garnered tells him that Potter is right. Draco hopes that sentiment will extend to all the areas he needs it to. "Starting Monday?"

Potter says, "Let me fill you in on the details."

*

Draco spends the last two days after the transformation curled up on one of Hogwarts' hospital beds, sleeping off the effects. Madam Pomfrey wakes him up occasionally to make him eat and to send him back to the shack--she looks a bit sickened by this latter duty--but other than that leaves him alone. Draco thanks her before he leaves, knowing the words are inadequate.

They're all he has at the moment.

He gives his notice at work. It's not hard to recognize the relief in his employer's eyes. Draco turns away from the expression. He knows he shouldn't care, he doesn't even really know this person and wouldn't have wanted to in his Hogwarts days. He cares.

He never thought it would be a relief to hike his way up a hill and say to Potter, "What's for today, then?" but Potter makes it surprisingly easy.

"I thought you could get to organizing the order forms. I was thinking something by nation and size of order, but I'm really not picky so long as you know what's going on and can tell me."

The second day when he arrives at the door, Potter squints at him. "Right, I was going to give you the coordinates to Apparate straight in," and does. He also gives Draco an advance on his salary when Draco asks without making it seem as though it's a big favor.

Draco takes the money straight over to Millicent's after leaving the shop. She's got a smile on her face, like maybe she was laughing the moment before. She doesn't get rid of it for his sake, which is nice. Draco sort of misses when people used to laugh around him. He hands her the money. "That's all of it."

She takes it from his hands and doesn't flinch from his touch. She was never the type to be scared by much. "Sure. It'll be completed on the twelfth."

The full falls on the sixteenth of the month so that's, "Brilliant. Thanks."

She steps back a bit. "You could come in. I was just doing some side work for," there's a bit of thought that goes into her next word, "a friend."

Draco knows what that kind of thought portends. He understands her smile, then. "I wouldn't want-"

"I've take away."

"What sort?" Not that it really matters, Draco doesn't turn away free food these days, even if he's confused about the source.

"Wizard enough for your palette. Come on, then." She takes hold of his robes and compels him inside.

There's definitely enough food for two. "Why'd you order so much?" he asks.

She shrugs. "First of the month. Thought you might show."

"I didn't think we were friends." Draco wonders if this is what vertigo feels like.

"We're not so much."

But Draco is eating her food, and he's pretty sure that means they're something. "Millicent."

"Draco, look, don't make this complicated, all right?"

Draco takes a bite and chews slowly. "I was under the impression that it was complicated all by itself."

"You looked like you could use a meal, possibly with someone."

"I just don't understand why it is you care."

Millicent traces over something she's working on with a finger. Her fingers are long, larger than one would expect on a woman, just like everything else about her. They're also surprisingly deft, and the shimmering mahogany painted on the nails is oddly intriguing. It should be out of place on her--she doesn't wear makeup anywhere else--but it seems to fit all the same. "I'm nineteen years old, Draco. My father was dead before I had a chance to know him, my mother went slowly crazy and killed herself with a mixture of sleeping and hallucinogenic potions. My mentor was tortured to death before he could see me fulfill any of the goals he helped me to achieve. Of the few friends I had, one was executed and another fled the country in fear of execution. I'm having to rebuild, and you're," she tilted her head, "you're nineteen, your parents are both dead, you saw your mentor tortured to death, and your friends have been entirely wiped out either by the side they joined or the side that beat that side. I figure giving you a chance couldn't hurt."

Draco pokes at his food. "You seem to be," he's trying to find the words, because 'all right' is a woeful glossing over, "making new friends. And you have your studies."

"I've been putting out the effort." Millicent looks pointedly at the meal they're sharing.

Draco smiles a little. "Touché."

She runs a hand through her messy hair and grins at him, a bit lopsidedly. "I could tell you what I've been doing at school."

"I could tell you what I've been doing at work," he says. He lets her go first. He can't understand most of what she's trying to tell him, it's too far above his abilities in Potions. He doesn't mind, he likes the sound of her studies, the way they seem like fun.

Draco keeps eating. This might, despite all the odds, work.

*

Draco asks for the three days he needs off about a week prior. It's not as though Potter is going to have a scheduling issue. Potter looks at him for a long second after he asks and says, "I thought you might ask."

Draco's heart skips a beat and then another one before it remembers what its job is. "You thought-"

"You did come in looking like hell during the last full. You're not the only werewolf I know."

Draco can't help looking around them, even though he knows they're the only people in the shop. "And you hired me anyhow?"

"I don't have your hang ups." Potter, damn him, looks amused.

"Oh yes," Draco snarls, "hysterically funny, isn't it?"

Immediately Potter's expression chastens. "Poetic, perhaps. Not amusing, really."

Potter's cold sympathy calms something in Draco. "So then, you know."

Potter throws him a disgusted look. "Oh for- You can have the days off, and I'm not about to tell anyone or fire you."

Draco repeats the words over to himself a few times. "Why?"

"You have a far better head for numbers than I do and I was going crazy with all these books."

"Potter-"

"Because it doesn't matter how much I didn't like you, Draco, I wasn't looking to have your agency and mind stolen from you in one and I'm not looking to be as ignorant as you were in your treatment of Remus because a little payback might be fun. I'm not-" Potter tosses his hands up in frustration. "I'm not thirteen anymore, are you?"

"I sometimes wouldn't mind."

Potter laughs at this observation, a choked, surprised laugh. "Cheers."

His response brings out a smile in Draco as well. "I thought you'd, well I mean, use the knowledge."

Potter frowns. "When have I ever-" He breaks off, recognition sliding over his face, smooth and bitter as castor oil. "I didn't know what the spell did."

"You what?" Draco remembers the intensity of everything splitting apart, ripping to pieces. He remembers thinking, _no, I still have, Father, I still have_ and Severus, always Severus, coming to save him.

"I didn't," Potter runs a hand through his hair. "It's like this. I came into having the book by accident, Slughorn gave it to me since I hadn't bought one, what thinking Snape was going to be teaching and all, and then it had all these spells I'd never heard of before and that one was labeled 'for enemies' which you _clearly_ were, so I used it, but I didn't know-"

"Do you always go around using spells without having any clue of their effect?"

"Not since then, obviously."

"It's incredible you survived to save the world."

"You sound like Snape."

Draco wants to bite something back, but it's the nicest thing Potter's ever said to him. It's irrelevant as to whether Potter knows that or was even intending that. "Hm, yeah."

Potter grins. "It was an insult."

"Yeah."

"I'm not sixteen anymore, either."

"Nineteen," Draco says.

Potter stares. After a minute or so of making him work for it, Draco nods his head, acceding the point. "Um, thanks. For the scheduling."

"Right," Potter says. "You really are good with numbers."

"They don't talk back," Draco tells him, and goes back to ordering the numbers around.

*

"Oh." Millicent peaks her head out the crack she's opened in her door. "You're early."

Though he has very little experience with it himself, Draco knows what freshly kissed lips look like. "I can, er, come back."

"No," she shakes her head a bit, as though to clear her thoughts, and steps back from the door. "No, come in, I'll go get it."

Draco steps inside but doesn't take his outer robes off. Millicent isn't wearing robes. Draco can't help staring at her as she walks down the hall. He doesn't remember her holding her shoulders low and thrown back, or having legs that keep going and going until they hit the floor.

As Millicent rounds the corner one way, a head full of bushy hair pokes itself around from the other direction. "Who's here, Mill-"

Draco stares at a rather tousled looking Hermione Granger. She stares back. "Oh, um. Mal- Draco. Draco, hello."

For a second, Draco attempts to keep himself from putting all the pieces together. That doesn't work so he shoves himself into autopilot and stutters, "Um, Granger."

She takes the couple of extra steps for her entire body to be in the hallway. She's pretty much like he remembers. He thinks she's gained some weight, or maybe just filled out more. He never paid much attention to her looks in school, at least not if he wasn't looking for something to poke fun at, but she somehow seems more substantial. Also, pinker, but that could be from the kissing.

"Suppose I'd just sound stupid if I said I was over here working."

Draco forces his brain to work, since hers has obviously recovered from any shock it's experienced. "I'd most likely take it euphemistically."

She flushes at that a little. "Harry says he's got you fixing all his mistakes."

To his complete horror, Draco feels a surge of protectiveness for _Potter_, of all people. "He's not as incapable as he makes out."

A look of consideration slides over her face for a quick minute. "No, not usually."

Panicked by the uncomfortable silence that threatens, and all the questions she could use to fill it, Draco leans back on years of training in the arena of pleasantries. "So, ah, what are you doing these days?"

"Publishing. Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom went in with me on starting up a small house. We all have divisions; I work mainly in textbook production. Trying to update a lot of textual information dissemination. Also, get some choices out there. I do a lot of the talking with authors and finding people to head up projects."

This is a veritable treasure trove of conversation-making information. "Longbottom and Lovegood?"

Granger nods. "They're engaged, you know. And Luna's always wanted to follow in her father's footsteps as it were. She's surprisingly good at coming up with new ideas and managing funds. She always seems so, well," Granger makes a face, "um, Luna, but the hat wasn't wrong about her. She's-" Millicent comes back into the hallway just as Granger's about to explain how much of a Ravenclaw Loony Lovegood has turned out to be. Granger stops mid-sentence to say, "Hey."

Millicent smiles back but doesn't stop in her progress toward Draco. She hands him a bag. "They're broken up into the correct amounts. You know-"

"Yeah, I'm. . .I used to do this all the time."

"Tell me if there's any sort of problem."

"Millicent-"

"There won't be."

"You just said-"

"It's a thing Potion Masters say. And I'm not willing either to mess with practices that have been in place long before me or to indulge in overconfidence of the type likely to get people killed. But there won't be a problem. There are times when mistakes aren't acceptable."

Draco clutches the bag tighter than probably necessary. "All right. I'll, ah, see you in a couple of weeks."

"Owl me, tell me how you did. Even if there isn't a problem."

Draco steps back physically from her concern. It doesn't help. "I'll, yeah, sure."

"Night, Draco," Granger says, not even stumbling over his name, which is just entirely unfair.

Not to be outdone he says, "Goodnight, Hermione. Pleasure speaking to you," and flees like there's a werewolf on his heels.

*

As much as Draco abhors the transformation without the aid of the Wolfsbane, he has never taken the potion without Severus there to stay with him through the night, has never had to experience being human enough to know who he is and what has happened to him, but at the same time simply be a wolf who has lost its pack. Draco comes out of the first night of transformation vomiting, half from the pain, half from the physical sensation of loneliness.

When he's cleaned himself up and managed to eat something, Draco decides that loneliness is better than the urge to eat one's fellow human beings. Despite it being a lesser of two evils, there's something comforting in having made the decision, and Draco is able to fall asleep for the large majority of the day, sleeping off the ill-effects on his body.

When he awakens from his nocturnal schedule on the third day it's only three o' clock, and Draco feels pretty decent, all things considered. What he wants is company. He could go to Millicent's, but he doesn't know her schedule and Draco doesn't know that they're quite at the point where he can just drop by. Also, the chance of catching her in bed with one of his former arch-nemeses is enough impetus for Draco to consider owling before going anywhere near her flat.

This leaves him with one option, so Draco goes to work. Potter looks up when Draco pops into being. "Shouldn't you be resting? You're not due back until tomorrow."

"It was too quiet at my place."

Potter's expression is mildly confused at this, as well it should be. Draco has yet to admit to liking Potter--and wouldn't even if he did, which, this is _Potter_, for Merlin's sake, even if he does do things like ignore Draco's three days a month as a man-eating beast and feed him up on a regular basis--and they don't really speak to each other much while working. Potter moves on without pressing the point, gesturing vaguely at rolls of parchment lying out on a table. "I've been trying to keep everything in that system you worked out."

"But the locking system on the filing compartments was too complex for you to remember?" Draco asks, since Potter is the one who created the lock. It was an intense bit of magic, sure, probably too intense for the information stored inside, but it was his own magic.

"Messing with that seemed like a good way to screw things up," Potter says mildly.

It's as quiet as it was in Draco's apartment, only not exactly, because Potter keeps muttering combinations of diagnostic spells on the broom he's trying to fix, and Draco's quill scratches against the records with a rhythmic regularity and it's not about the sound anyhow. It's about the fact that Potter's sitting not ten feet away and if Draco broke and asked, "Look, could you just, I dunno, talk to me?" he probably would.

Out of nowhere, Potter says, "You're looking better this time."

Draco doesn't have to ask what he means. Werewolves can see themselves in mirrors. "Wolfsbane."

"Millicent?"

Draco's lost on how Potter knows for a moment, and then he says, "You and Granger haven't-"

"No, but Hermione set Remus up to receive his through her."

Draco wonders if, in her unsettling relationship with logical deduction, Granger knows about him as well. Or if Millicent merely told. He doesn't think so on that last. Millicent's a lot of things, but she isn't disloyal or a snitch. Also, that's unprofessional, and she's obviously working too hard to establish herself in the field to want to behave that way. Draco, wanting to keep the conversation going and too curious to stop himself, asks, "How'd they- How long- Um."

"Yeah," Potter laughs. "I know. We were all a bit that way. I don't know if you know but Hermione's started herself a-"

"Publishing firm."

"Right. Anyway, one of her pet projects is updating a lot of textbooks used around the isles, and the Potions textbooks were woefully out of date. She wanted to work with, er, one of Snape's old," Potter paused and his next word was cautious, as though he was unsure it was the right one, "notebooks, and some of the other written stuff that Minerva still had in her care when he fled the school. Hermione's pretty brilliant at working with books, but she wanted someone who had really worked with Snape on some level to help her with utilizing all the information to its best potential. One thing led to another as she was searching around for names, and eventually Millicent's came up."

"And she just?" Draco makes random motions with his hands.

"Well, no. I mean, Millicent did try to kill her with her bare hands at least twice while we were in school."

Although, here Draco is, working for Potter, so that's obviously not as indicative of a problem as one might assume.

Potter runs his hand gently over the length of the broom handle. "But she really was the best choice and Hermione's pretty married to her work and wants it always to be the best, so she approached her. Millicent said yes, and then all of a sudden they were spending all this time together, and then Hermione just tells me that they're girlfriends and she hopes that's not going to be an issue for me."

Draco has to wonder whether it was, but doesn't ask.

Potter tells him, "That was about six months ago. So far it's working out."

Draco actually received _that_ owl post. "At the very least, your pet werewolves are being kept safe."

"You're about as much a pet as the Jarvey in the garden who keeps inventing curses solely for me," Potter says.

"You just compared me to a Jarvey."

"In the sense that you aren't like one. Don't play stupid."

Draco ignores this last and go back to work. Nearly an hour later, when he decides that it's really only gracious to say, "Thank you," he's not sure if Potter even knows what he's done. He doesn't ask, so Draco figures he followed the thought, and they both let it go.

*

Draco's landlord raises the rent on him. Draco isn't sure if his landlord knows something or not, but the odd looks he's giving Draco are less than confidence-inspiring. Draco starts scrounging the _Prophet_ again but it becomes evident within a short amount of time that the only way his rent is going to go down is to find himself a roommate.

A roommate who won't notice his little affliction.

Draco considers asking Potter for a raise, but he's only been working for him a month and that seems like a good way to lose a job that's really the best thing he's got going for himself at the moment.

This leaves him a few options. There's always a second job, a thought he keeps in reserve. Cutting meals is also a possibility. Either of those is preferable to the selling of Severus' stuff. His hesitancy over unloading the inheritance is what leads him to the best idea he's come up with so far. He formulates the full plan over several days before heading up to Hogwarts to discuss it with the Headmistress.

He knows he's coming this time, and Potter loans him Hedwig without asking any questions, so Draco's able to actually set up an appointment. He shows up early for it, unwilling to give her any reason to think less of what he's about to propose.

Once he's settled she offers him tea and biscuits. Draco takes some of each. She says, "You're looking better."

The comment isn't barbed. Draco nods. "I came to talk about your offer. I want to finish, and I think I've got something worth at least part of my missing year of school."

"Severus' books," she says softly.

Draco stops drinking mid-sip. "How did you-"

"Swallow, Mr. Malfoy." The command in her voice leaves no room for quibbling. Draco feels the tea burn all the way down. She continues, "It's hardly any secret to whom he left them. I thought about suggesting a trade that very first day but thought that might be overplaying my hand a bit. I also felt that it was a decision you had to come to yourself, unaided."

Her voice is gentle at this last, as if she knows how much it costs him to give the books over to her, even knowing he'll still be able to see them. Even knowing, as he does, that Severus would have encouraged this decision on his part. Draco presses forward, "I have a day job."

"Yes, you would come at dinner, I think. I'm willing to work out a tutoring schedule with the professors of those areas you'd want to continue in. Some of them are near to your age, I expect that you would show the same respect as you did to, well, Severus."

"Of course," Draco murmurs. It will be a bit awkward, certainly, but Draco can handle awkward. He's gotten what he needs out of this, a standing invitation to a dinner for which he doesn't have to pay.

"Potions, then, I assume. Arithmancy, Charms, Transfiguration."

"Runes and Defense."

"Naturally." She makes some notes on the parchment in front of her. "That shouldn't be a problem. I will see if I can arrange for an off-season NEWT session for you."

"I hadn't even begun to think about that."

"I've been in administration for a few years now," she says dryly.

Draco smiles a bit to show her he's caught on to the joke. "The books are in my vault."

"I figured as much. If you trust me, you can file a release form straight to Hogwarts and I'll have Irma go in and take care of the work aspect of the transfer."

"That shouldn't be a problem."

"Most of them will need to go in the Restricted Section, but I'll let Irma know that anytime you want access to any of them you are to be granted such."

Draco can barely force his, "thank you," past his lips.

The expression in her eyes is hard to read. She pushes the plate of biscuits in his direction. "Have another."

*

Three months in to their arrangement, when Draco's been winging school by night and work during the day, Millicent frowns at him in consternation. She takes his money and says, "You know this stuff works best when you're actually taking care of yourself."

Draco knows. Everything about the transformation works best when he's taking care of himself, but he has bills to pay and bargains to hold his end up on, and "okay" might not be "best" but it's enough. "I've been busy."

"Mm, so the wireless tells me," she says, using wizarding vernacular for "gossip." "Not to sound bitter, but as we see each other at least twice a month and I've been trying to get you to come over more, I wouldn't have minded learning from you."

"Adrian?" he asks.

"Professor Pucey," she says, smiling.

"Oh shut it," he tells her, but without any real malice.

Her smile isn't completely gone when she tells him, softly, "I think it's a great idea, Draco."

Draco doesn't stop to contemplate the way her approval makes him sure that he's done something right. "Right, well, I've got homework."

"Anything I can help with? I'm a fair hand at Potions."

Draco hesitates. She keeps a lab in her flat. It's small and there are traces of her status as student from floor to ceiling but it's clean and well-stocked. Draco can't help thinking that it would be more fun to perform his extra practicals in there, rather than under the judgmental gaze of Slughorn, random sixth and seventh years using cauldrons all around. "You really wouldn't mind?"

Millicent blinks at him. He says quickly, "Nevermind, I didn't realize-"

"No," she cuts him off. "No, it's just. I know I've been trying to show you that we're not who we were and all that sort of thing that Hermione's always saying when I'm feeling a bit blue around the edges, but right then, I mean, you would have torn me to bits, yeah? My cauldrons are all second-hand and most of the time I can't afford the full bottle ingredients so I have to buy in quantities and well, I just thought after I asked that I was going to hear. . .Malfoy. Some kid I grew up around. And it just occurred to me that he's gone."

She doesn't sound elated by the possibility, but Draco knows she isn't mourning either. Most days that's exactly how he feels. "Don't get too overwhelmed. I plan on using you for your skills and private studying space."

"Sounds to be a good time," she says casually, knowingly.

"Why?" he asks her, knowing she'll understand, knowing the answer, even having heard it before.

"Can you think of a better alternative?" she answers.

Draco can't.

*

The problem with Granger is that she's good at everything. She has the areas where she really shines, just like anyone else, but when Draco's exhausted and frustrated and working on whatever he's chosen to work on, she always knows the way to make him see what's been opaque for him up until the event of her assistance.

She's around all the time, which at first Draco thinks is going to be prohibitive of his using Millicent's labs, but Granger stays out of his way for the most part. Only there is that morning, early, when Draco comes over before he has to be at work so as to complete a practical and while he's waiting for it to simmer he creeps into the kitchen to see if he can beg some coffee off Millicent. Millicent isn't around and stealing her coffee is a little bit beneath him, so he sits at the table and tries to write an essay responding to the theoretical paradox in Whirlwind Charms.

Granger wonders in just as Draco is about to give up. She looks as put together as she ever does and Draco thinks, _of course she's a morning person. Of course._

She asks, "Coffee?"

"Um," he says, because she doesn't live here, and he's vaguely indebted to the person who does.

"We never get through a pot by ourselves anyway," she tells him, and Summons a third cup, lining it up next to the first two. "What're you working on?"

He wants to say, "None of your business," perhaps even toss in a "mudblood," just to make sure the message is clear. He is tired, and the fact that she's being gracious about the charity-coffee is rubbing at him more than if she had shoved his poverty in his face. He doesn’t need her parading her intelligence in front of him on top of that. Instead he mumbles, "Charms," since he needs the coffee more than his pride at the moment.

She shuffles around to his side of the table and peers over his shoulder. "Oh, awful. Whirlwind Paradox Theory. I've been debating with my hired experts over whether to even include that in the revised text. I mean, is it really significant to understand that the magic controls on a ridiculously small percentage of heavily controlled and often high-level charms work inversely?"

All thoughts of calling her names fly out the window with the morning post at that moment, as he leans over the parchment to complete the last three inches of writing in a matter of moments. When he looks up, she's grinning. "Did I say the magic words?"

Weeks after that occurrence, Draco comes to realize that her words _are_ magic. He isn't sure if it's because she reads so bloody much--she's always holding a book or near one, or looking for one--or if kissing Millicent makes someone's tongue turn golden. Either way, when it's not Potions he needs help with, he always finds a way to position himself so that Granger will come floating around sooner or later. He knows she's onto him, she's too smart not to be, but it still seems slightly less embarrassing for her to wander into the middle of his struggles then for him to go begging for help.

It's sort of annoying that, like Potter, Granger's name has fallen off the list of people at whom he can feel righteous indignation without being called to answer for it. Weasley's still on the list, though, so that's something.

Granger also makes good coffee and lets him drink most of it. He isn't entirely clear where her guilt complex about drinking coffee comes from, but he's pretty sure it has a lot to do with her parents and some sort of job involving teeth. He doesn't ask a lot of questions; he'd rather she be grateful to him for taking the rest of the pot off her hands than carefully pitying of his inability to afford his own pot.

Sooner rather than later the two of them have what Draco thinks of as a "working" relationship. This is all to his benefit as it makes Millicent happy, and a happy brewer is generally an accurate one. It also contributes to making him feel not-so-alone in his schoolwork, and, by extension in his life.

Somewhere along the way Draco begins to think that Granger having a sort of edge of perfection without much more isn't such a bad thing. It almost makes him stop coming around Millicent's, but he skips a few nights and Millicent sends him an owl with a slanted, "Eating the neighbors in your spare time?" which isn't fair at all seeing as how it's not even the full. He goes back to defend himself and somehow ends up staying.

*

Millicent looks so miserable when she asks, Draco has to wonder how many months she's put it off. She says, "I know you're not exactly, well, that the twenty-five a month is pretty significant anyway, but prices have been mad and, look, just five more a month? If you can?"

There was a time, a long, luxurious length of time when five galleons a month wasn't even the sum total of his pocket change. Draco desperately wants to tell her he can't, that five galleons is at least three meals for him. He's figured out, though, that Granger pays Millicent's rent every few months so that Millicent can handle tuition expenses. He knows because they always have a fight about her moving in around the same time.

He thinks Granger's parents might not know she likes girls; he can't figure out any other reason why Granger keeps objecting.

Draco's also pieced together, from conversations between Slughorn and McGonagall, that his twenty-five a month has probably been covering ingredients-only for at least a couple of months. Draco can't tell Millicent this, of course, but he appreciates her not charging for the labor. That would probably be a fifteen galleon increase, and Draco's not entirely unaware of how cheaply she'd be valuing her services.

Draco says, "It's fine," cuts back on daytime meals, and starts trying to fit in a snack before he leaves Hogwarts at around midnight. The set up is working well enough but Draco thinks the best thing to do for the moment is finish up the term he's been working on at Hogwarts and leave for a second job.

He's had this plan for nearly three weeks when he finally works up the nerve to tell McGonagall. She seats him in her office and he says, "Headmistress, I wouldn't want you to think I didn't appreciate everything you've done-"

"The deal was for your missing NEWT year, Mr. Malfoy. You pull out on the deal now and I will have no choice but to return half of Severus' books to you, something I've absolutely no desire to do."

Draco hasn't really thought about it that way--Severus' books are where they're meant to be, and that's far more significant than any value they have as a bargaining chip. "The books are yours, Professor. I do intend to return, at some point-"

"Intentions have a way of going terribly wrong, Mr. Malfoy."

She has a point. Unfortunately it's far overwhelmed by the fact that if he doesn't acquire a second job soon, he's not going to be able to afford the Wolfsbane, and Draco would rather dose himself with slow-acting poison than go back to having to chain himself to keep from severe auto-inflicted maimings. Draco sighs. "I've made my choice, Professor."

"I don't suppose you feel you can ask Mr. Potter for a raise?"

Draco can feel his expression sharpen. "It's nothing to do with that."

McGonagall's expression, for its part, is deeply unimpressed. "With the exception of epic sorts of things, I've found there's very little in this world or any other that doesn't have to do with money. Also, I am, in my own way, every bit as omniscient as my predecessor ever was."

As much as he wishes he didn't, Draco hears the warning in her words. "Potter's done all right by me."

"I don't doubt it, but you seem to have done all right--as you would have it--by him as well."

Draco, however, keeps track of Potter's finances, so he knows that Potter's sending him bonuses when he can. He decides it's not the worst thing in the world for this woman to merely think he's being pigheaded. "I can't ask."

After a long silence, her only response is, "You _will_ finish this term, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco nods, uncomfortably aware that her easy capitulation means she's up to something.

*

He finds out what less than a week later, when Potter says, "Word has it you're on the market for a roommate."

The quill Draco's using flies straight from his hand, flipping wildly across the room. "I'm _what_?"

Potter frowns. "Roommate. Y'know, to keep expenses down." He looks a little chagrined. "I'm hoping once I get that Swedish account I can give you a raise."

Draco waves his hand. "I'm not looking for a roommate. I'm a _werewolf_."

"Well, right, everyone who knows is taking that under consideration, I'm sure."

Until now, Draco has always thought the rumor that Gryffindors have some sort of genetic madness encoded in them was just a Slytherin joke. He can--on certain rare occasions--admit when he's been wrong. "Potter, I wouldn't want to live with a nutter who was all right with being in the same flat as a ravenous beast for three days every month."

For some reason, Potter looks uncomprehending. "You can't plan on just spending the rest of your life alone."

"I bloody well can," Draco says, not entirely sure where the disconnect is happening between them.

"Didn't Snape- I mean, we all thought he must have-"

"That was different."

Potter's face takes on a look of consideration. "Er, how?"

"Because it was-" Draco stops when he realizes he's about to say _Severus_. Which, obviously, is no answer at all. At least not from Potter's view, and not even really--when Draco thinks about it for more than a second--from his. Draco searches for an answer that will mollify Potter. In the end he picks his answer more because of its likelihood to disgust and offend Potter (thereby leading the conversation in a different direction) than because it really sheds any light on the situation. "We shared certain marks. There was an understanding between us."

Instead of snarling something about Death Eaters, or Severus, or stomping off, or doing any of the things Draco had really planned on Potter being good for, he tilts his head. "Marks."

"Dark ones," Draco clarifies, on the off chance that Potter has suddenly become dense.

Potter merely throws him a supremely unimpressed look. "Right then."

Draco has to work to keep his jaw from entering into a permanently unhinged state. "Right?"

Potter nods. "Certainly. I can accept that."

"Potter-"

"Don't," Potter says, and Draco hears enough of the emotion he's been waiting for all this time to keep him from saying anything else. Potter, however, continues. "My parents are dead, a good smattering of my friends are dead, and I have enough nightmares to share with the world and still last a lifetime. But the prophecy--which I did hear, by the way--said that 'neither shall live while the other survives.' I spent seventeen years not truly living while that git pounced around complicating things for me because he wasn't smart enough to get the whole story before just going ahead with his stupid fucking plans."

Draco isn't sure how all this leads to Potter _not_ blowing up at him about the whole swearing-allegiance thing, but he sure as anything isn't going to ask.

Luckily, Potter goes on after a short break and a deep breath. "I overcame him through my ability to hold onto love despite all of his actions and the effects they had on my life. I _could_ spend my life amassing hate and becoming nothing but a shell of him, but I can't see how that would be living, and the prophecy, it bloody well promised me that if I could just off the fucker. You see?"

What Draco has gotten out of all that is, "You just want to leave that all behind."

"And fix some brooms, and possibly get rich and marry some really hot witch and make fat babies."

Draco looks down at the account book he's working on. "I'll, ah, see what I can do."

Potter grins, and despite the shadows still lingering in his eyes and over his cheeks, the expression manages to relay a certain amount of sincerity. "We understand each other, then."

*

Potter finds him a roommate. He does not find Potter a hot witch. Well, all right, in his defense, Potter, Granger and Millicent (probably McGonagall too, but Draco is stringently **not** thinking about that) all plot completely against him so as to back him into a corner. A corner with Remus Lupin and his two bedroom cottage complete with hardwood floors, pipes that don't scream when somebody wants the water hot, and double-pane windows.

This palace of a living space comes at fifty galleons a month less than the pit he's been calling "home" with a mental twist of his mouth.

It's located in the Lake District, although Keswick, not Ambleside. Reading between the creases in the parchment, Draco thinks Lupin is paying Potter off for the house. Something about another house (his cousin's? Draco remembers his mum being incensed about some issue of inheritance) being sold and the proceeds financing the cottage, but Draco's smart enough not to ask.

Lupin wants half the amount he pays Potter each month, and Potter has no issues with merely paying Draco the difference in his salary. Draco doesn't object, because there's nothing to object to, not on the surface. When he arrives at Lupin's doorstep with his single packing case and the clothes on his back, though, and Lupin just steps back and says, "Oh, hello," like Draco should just come on in, Draco finds he can't.

Instead, Lupin steps outside, shutting the door behind him. "Nice day."

It is, but that isn't really the point. Draco says, "I've about had it with random Gryffindor acts of kindness."

"Millicent isn't a Gryffindor," Lupin says mildly.

"Exception that proves the rule."

"And when we've made a success story out of you?"

Draco can't help the horrified glance he throws at Lupin. Who--_git_\--just smiles. Draco, wanting to knock that easy-going manner from his almost-roommate's frame, sneers, "Don't rewrite my story, _professor_. I would have had you and your kind put down, given half the chance."

"Mm, but really the only 'me' of 'me and my kind' whom you knew was Fenrir, and I can't say as I would have disagreed with that notion. Also, I hear of late you have good reason for increased compassion to. . ._my_ kind." Lupin's tone is still even, but the gold in his eyes has hardened to a dark yellow.

Draco purses his lips angrily, but doesn't respond.

Lupin's next question, when it comes, is so soft Draco nearly doesn't hear. "Have you ever had company, during the full?"

Draco almost pretends he hasn't heard. He finds he can't pass up the option to tell this person who might, might, might understand about Severus, about the kind of man he was. "Severus stayed with me."

"Yes," Lupin says. "Of course he would have. I meant. . . I meant non-human company."

Draco blinks. "He kept me away from Fenrir."

Lupin shudders at the thought. "Friendly company."

Draco shakes his head. Lupin says, "Come in the house. I've made us tea. A welcome sort of kind." He sounds as though he expects Draco to reject him. He sounds as though he is not entirely sure this would be an unfortunate end to the conversation.

But really, Draco's only other option is to go back, which is no option at all. He supposes he could stand in the yard until it was time to head back to work, but that seems a bit foolish. He is paying rent, after all. "All right."

Lupin, whatever misgivings he might have, holds the door open for Draco.

*

Draco still isn't all that familiar with his living space when he walks into the kitchen one morning to find Granger at his kitchen table. He looks around to reassure himself he really is in his house, and hasn't accidentally fallen asleep at Millicent's place. Again.

Granger looks up with a smile. "Oh, hey. Odd to see you here."

"I live here." Draco wishes he sounded more confident about that fact.

"Yes. Going to take some getting used to. The water in the kettle's hot."

Thinking the heat and rehydration might help him to understand this situation better, Draco crosses to the kettle and pours himself a cup. He begins to reach for the tea above the hob, only to remember that Lupin keeps it over the Cooling Chest. When he's found something suitably citrus-y, he plunges it into the water and leaves it to steep. "Um. Odd to see you here?"

"Not really; I'm here all the time. Remus is my head content editor, or didn't he say?"

Draco blows over the surface of the slowly-darkening tea. "He didn't."

"Hm." She doesn't look up from the text she's attacking with her quill. "What time does Harry expect you?"

"Nine."

"Want half?" she asks, pushing a lemon poppyseed muffin in his direction.

"You don't want it?"

She makes a face. "I always think I want sugar this early in the morning, and I'm always wrong."

She is probably lying. He has gotten used to the lies she tells to cover her pity. The thought makes him sick and for a moment he thinks he may validly be able to pass up her charity. Then the moment passes. Sugar, salt, or soybean, Draco's long gotten himself out of the habit of refusing food. "Thanks."

"You could use a bit of feeding up."

Since Granger's obviously a woman who likes a bit of substance to her partners--at last glance, Weasley had started to fill out in what would have been all the right places were Draco ever to admit that a Weasley could _have_ right places--Draco doesn't take the opinion too much to heart. Lupin makes his entrance into the kitchen in the Falmouth Falcon pajamas that Draco's willing to bet were a present from Harry. He nods at the two people already sitting, and says, "Good morning," directly in the middle of a yawn.

Draco nods politely. "Granger heated the water."

Granger, for her part, doesn't give any indication of greeting, just starts in, "Have you seen this drek?"

"That descriptor could refer to any number of transcripts we work through any week, you'll have to be more specific." Lupin passes up the tea for the pomegranate juice he keeps in the Cooling Chest. It's what he drinks almost every morning. Draco tried some a few mornings earlier and found it far too tart.

"I think it's only gotten worse since I decided there was a market for fiction."

"And if that market weren't making you a very wealthy witch, I would quit accepting those submissions altogether," Lupin says, joining them at the table. "But I rather enjoy my life of comfort and indigence, and so your financial affairs are of some import to me."

Silently, Draco drinks a toast to that. Granger peers at him out of the corner of her eye. "If you so much as wibble toward a smile over my misery, I'll put you to work making you read some of these."

Draco shrugs. "Couldn't be any more outlandish than some of Potter's older records."

There is a moment of awkward silence wherein Draco assumes everyone is assessing whether he has insulted their hero or not. Then Lupin laughs softly. Granger's laughter is a bit more grudging, but it follows all the same. Somehow, Draco finds himself joining them.

*

For a second after he asks, Draco can't believe he's actually put words to his thoughts. Millicent's looking at him pretty oddly, though, so he must have said, "Weren't Potter and the Weasley girl dating, back in sixth?"

Millicent says, "Um, yeah, for a bit. Hermione says Potter broke it off in favor of killing Voldemort and then afterwards. . . Well, nobody knows for sure, but I think," Millicent stops for a second, considering Draco, "I think Potter came back different than he left. That Hermione and her Weasley were all right because they'd been there the whole time but that a lot of other people couldn't handle the change."

Potter's definitely different. Draco wouldn't be working for him otherwise. It's never occurred to Draco that this difference, which makes life more comfortable for him, might have a negative effect on the people who'd cared for him _before_. "Huh."

"They're still friends."

"I never see her around."

"She's busy a lot. She started pretty high up in the Department of Games and Sports, and it's looking like she's going to be the youngest head ever. She's dating Hermione's ex."

Draco's stomach flips uncomfortably at that. "Um-"

Millicent laughs. "Not her brother. Krum. Remember, from fourth year?"

Draco remembers. The acid-splash of jealousy that had burnt in him all year never quite cleared up. He wonders if maybe one of these days she'll tell him how it felt, Krum's hands on her waist, at her elbow, his lips. . . Draco doubts he'll ever have the nerve to ask. "That family has something for tri-wizard competitors."

"Like you wouldn't have been on your back, two legs in the air if _either_ Krum or Diggory had looked at you twice."

Draco stares at Millicent. As far as he knows, he's never told anybody who would have told her about his penchant for members of his own sex. In fact, as far as Draco knows, he's never told anybody. And it isn't as if anyone's kissed and told, since Draco hasn't ever managed his fear of getting caught enough to try. Not even Severus knew about him. Or at least, if he did, the information was stolen in a moment of mental sorcery when Draco was off his guard. He would often drop it around Severus. Draco laughs a little. "What are you talking about?"

"Draco," and for a second it seems as if she plans to scoff at him, but then she frowns a bit, "Draco, I practically live with Hermione."

Which is all well and good but Millicent never had half the expectations Draco has learned to live with. Realistically he knows most of them no longer exist but there are certain things that are knit into his very being at this point, and he is uncertain of how to rip them out, uncertain what the results would be should he choose to do so. "And everybody does wonder about that practically," Draco says, hoping both to distract her and maybe gets some answers.

She goes for the latter. "Oh, it's a Uni thing, I get more money if I live on my own." She denies him completely on the former. "Don't change the subject."

"Pansy and I-"

"Yes, Pansy and you. Funny how she always had to be the one to make the overtures. And how you've never once asked what she's doing now, even though you have to know she's alive. She always had a gift for keeping herself above the muck."

"We grew apart."

"The distance was surprisingly short, wasn't it?"

"No, it just, I-" Draco stops. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because somebody else did it for me and I haven't got any chance of repaying her except to repeat her actions in another instance. Draco, believe me, nobody cares. Your parents aren't alive to, Professor Snape wouldn't have, and I obviously haven't any room to care. Lupin's either way at any given moment, Potter's best friends with Hermione, and McGonagall regularly gets together with Hermione both to discuss new texts at the school and just as a friend. Also, Hermione won't say, but I'm pretty sure McGonagall has had her own share of pretty girls in her time."

"Millicent!"

Millicent rolls her eyes. "You're a prude, Draco Malfoy. Which I guess over nineteen years of sexual repression will do to a person."

Draco wants to leave, to _flee_ but the potion he's working out the practical on is still brewing and though he's willing to look like a coward, there are limits. "I just haven't had much choice of or chance with girls," he sniffs.

She snorts at that. "Draco, you were a _Malfoy_. You could have had any Slytherin girl and the overwhelming majority of Ravenclaw. Hufflepuffs wouldn't have turned you down either if you'd been willing to give them a chance."

"Gryffindors?"

Millicent smiles. "Well, I didn't say, but there were a few there as well."

Draco thinks maybe he _should_ have tried that out, and then realizes his folly as his stomach considers crawling up his esophagus. "I had bigger things on my mind."

"And I suppose now that you're a werewolf, it wouldn't even be worth the effort," Millicent says, a fine edge of cruelty in her tone. She doesn't have to say that she knows he's lying.

Draco turns resolutely from her but she just waits. Finally Draco says, "I am nothing they would have had me be." He takes a breath. "Not even human."

Gently, so so gently, Millicent says, "But you are what you are, Draco. And they are dead." Softly she follows this with an, "I'm sorry."

"You didn't like them," he says coldly to her apology.

"No, but you loved them."

"Perhaps my most considerable failing."

Millicent says nothing in response.

Draco tells her, "You're right."

"I know." She doesn't even sound triumphant.

"Would you not tell the others?"

"Not for anything."

Draco tries smiling at her, but it comes out all wrong. She nods like she gets it anyway.

*

Lupin says, "Would it bother you terribly if I started calling you by your given name? Seeing as we're living together and all."

Draco shrugs. Lupin has made him blueberry scones and he is momentarily willing to agree to just about anything. Draco is secretly easy when it comes to flour and processed sugar. Lupin presses on ahead, "Because I thought we might trade off, the comfort of being referred to by my first name in my own house not being something I would mind."

As Draco's mum did everything _but_ beat table manners into him, he is careful to swallow before he says, "You were my professor."

"I've heard you use the term 'Severus' in casual conversation."

"He was sort of around even before the professor thing," Draco explains.

"Yes, all right," Lupin says, with no indication that he was going to insert something nasty either about Severus or Draco's family. He does sound annoyed when he continues with, "You could at least try."

"Remus," Draco tries. It's a bit weird, but Draco imagines he'll get over the feeling that someone's going to take house points. To steer the conversation in safer directions, he motions toward his plate. "These are good."

Lupin- Draco makes himself start over again in his head. Remus looks pleased, although whether it's over the name thing or the compliment, Draco's not completely sure. He offers, "They're not hard." Then, after only a short wavering of hesitation, "I could show you sometime, if you'd like."

Draco's knee jerk reaction still involves house elves and Malfoys and the twain never meeting but he remembers how Severus used to like cooking. Draco was pretty sure Severus had never told much of anyone that, seeing as how it was so imminently Muggle. At the very least, it was a sign of inferior breeding, and Severus could afford no more signs of that than were already apparent. He'd told Draco, though; the pronouncement had contained twice as much bite as the lemon tarts he'd later made for them. Draco is pretty sure that was chosen just to show off. Severus had never really needed to do that for Draco, but Draco never mentioned that to him. He wishes he had. "Sure."

Remus nods. "I make a lot of food right before the full. That way I, uh, we can just wake up and gorge."

"You always feel hungry after the full?" For Draco it's fifty-fifty, depending on how nauseated he is upon waking. He's either ravenous or completely without appetite. Part of him can't believe he's asking someone else this, and casually, like how the weather feels or what time he's going to be home. It's unbearably freeing.

Remus says, "Mostly, at least when I'm on the Wolfsbane. Without. . ."

"Yeah," Draco says. He knows that drill.

"Yeah." The quirk of Remus' mouth isn't one that expresses happiness.

"I could try and help. With the food."

"You're pretty busy." Remus sounds doubtful. Draco doesn't think the doubt has anything to do with his schedule. He lets it go, though, because Remus shows enough faith in him to promise, "I'll teach you the scones, but the rest can wait until you've finished your Hogwarts year."

"That's at least another six cycles."

"In a lifetime of them." Remus' tone is decidedly weary. "If you're worried about me taking all of it on, don't. I've done this and done it by myself for more years than I care to count."

Draco finds the warning in Remus' voice, the echo of years that he hasn't yet counted all too daunting to do anything but nod in accession.

*

Even more unsettling than Remus' human tendency toward a tired but nonetheless workable kindness is his wolf tendency toward it. Of course, Draco knows better than anyone that it's not the wolf expressing kindness, it's the human in a wolf's skin. Only, that's not entirely true either, because the Wolfsbane may be magic at its best and most powerful, but the wolf is far too integral to Draco's being to ever completely be drawn out--even of his mind.

Draco's only been a werewolf for two years. Remus has had a lifetime to acquire the bitterness of unspoken exile, a lifetime of full moons for the wolf to knit itself tightly into his mind.

He lopes into Draco's room shortly after the pain of the transformation has worn off for Draco. He noses at Draco, obviously checking to see if there's anything wrong.

Draco nearly noses him back in clear wolf language for "gerroff!" It's been an indecently long time since anyone has touched Draco in wolf form, though, and he can't refuse the contact. It's been an interminably long time since anyone has touched Draco in any form. He allows Remus his inspection, and, boldly, instigates one of his own.

Draco can smell lingering pain on Remus. He whimpers. Remus makes some sort of sound that translates to Draco as, "Not important," and trots from the room. He clearly expects Draco to follow.

Draco actually thinks about it for a few seconds and then does what he was always going to do. He follows.

Remus takes them right out of the house. He continues on through several ill-lit streets that Draco thinks they probably shouldn't be risking. Muggles aren't going to look at the overgrown, misshapen form of a werewolf and think, "oh, that's a big kitty." Remus leads him into a wooded area. As soon as he has breached the cover of the trees, Remus breaks into a run.

Draco forgets all about Muggles and mutant cats and dignity and all sorts of other things that seemed so important the moment before, and sets out on Remus' heels.

Severus would stay by him and touch him and even talk to him during the long nights in ill-fitting skin. Running in the open has never before been a possibility. Draco tries to comprehend how good this feels, the soft mud sloshing beneath his paws, the conversation of the wind as he crashes into it, even the snap of the branches against his coarse hair. Draco can hardly breathe for the joy.

He catches up to Remus at points, and the two of them tussle, Draco far too caught up in what passes for endorphins in the wolf to think things like, "Hey, ex-professor," or "You have to eat breakfast with him tomorrow."

Eventually, they've both worn themselves into a sort of jog and their meetings are punctuated simply with half-hearted swipes of their paws. Remus noses Draco again, and begins to lead him back to the cottage.

Draco falls into a dead sleep next to the back door. Even the instincts of the wolf aren't enough to overcome his breeding and get him to track mud all over their floors.

*

Draco wakes up cold and sore. Desperate for heat, and nowhere near ready to walk, he drags himself toward the fireplace. His wand is on the mantle. All it takes is a weak _accio_ and a weak _incendio_ for him to start warming up. This is all to the good, as that's about all Draco has in him. Still, it's more than he would have without the Wolfsbane.

Eventually his muscles loosen to the point where he can reach up and steal the throw lying over the arm of the sofa at his back. He wraps himself tightly in it and falls back asleep in front of the fire.

He wakes up again later. This time he's warm and. . .on the couch? Draco blinks.

"Morning," Remus says. He's pulled the reading chair nearer to the fire. He looks half-asleep himself, but he's at least dressed.

"Did you-"

"_Levimobilis._"

Draco grunts. "I could barely start the fire."

"It's one of my specialties." There's a pause before he explains,--guardedly but with a small spark of forgotten joy--"Sirius and James liked to get rather lit on an occasional basis."

Draco wonders if Potter knows that about his father. There was a time when Draco would have taunted him with the information. And with the fact that Draco knew first. "Did you ever. . .drink with them?"

Remus' smile is wry. "Once or twice."

"What was it like?"

Remus considers him for a while before answering, his eyes narrow, perhaps unsure of what Draco is after, and whether he wants to give him anything. Then, for whatever reason--maybe simply because they are both there, the two of them and nobody else--he chooses to do so. "Hm. It's a bit hard to describe. There's the tipsy stage, when everything gets a bit dizzy. And then it's sort of like someone took whatever you were feeling before you started in, and blew it up inside of you. If you keep going there's sort of this blank feeling eventually, but that's hard to tell about, because usually you don't remember it."

"Is it nice?" Draco's parents never drank to excess, but several of his extended family members had. As a kid he'd always wanted a sip of what they were having. Mum had never allowed that. Thinking back on Bellatrix, that was probably for the best.

"It can be." Remus turns slightly toward Draco. "Would you like to try it?"

For a second it's beyond Draco's comprehension that such an act could be safe. Then he remembers the feel of the forest under all four of his paws. Instinctively--and somewhat paradoxically, given that he's fairly certain the other man doesn't much like him--Draco knows that Remus will keep him safe. He doesn't explore the instinct any further, scared by its strength. "Maybe."

Remus nods. "Are you hungry?"

"I was thinking of a bath," Draco says truthfully. Warm water sounds like bliss.

"I already indulged." Sheepishly, Remus adds, "I fell asleep in it. You, ah, might want to avoid that."

"I set Waking Charms on the water's surface," Draco says. He learned to do that after his first near-drowning experience. Severus had yelled at him for two hours and then not spoken to him for another week.

Remus looks at him like this is a given. Draco supposes it probably is to him. Remus doesn't press the issue. Instead he turns the conversation back to food. "We have Corn Flakes."

Draco doesn't have anything, at the moment. The Corn Flakes are Remus' as are the scones and the eggs and everything of substance. He does his best to acknowledge the charity without expressing gratitude or snapping by making his awareness of this fact clear: "Do you have any of that Persian tea left?"

"I'll steep it while you're soaking."

"You don't have to."

"No, I don't," Remus says, sounding a little more at ease with his choice to help Draco anyway than he has up to this point. "On you go, take your bath."

Draco goes. When he emerges, finally warm and infinitely less sore, there's strong Persian tea with just the right amount of milk and a bowl of Corn Flakes waiting for him. The best part of it all is that breakfast here comes complete with conversation.

*

The second night Remus nudges Draco and his muddy paws to the fireplace. He lit it and put a Containing Spell on it just before they transformed. Draco has to admit, it's nice. And really, it doesn't take much to clean up paw prints. A little bit of household magic is all. Draco doesn't know any household magic, but Remus knows loads.

Draco has learned a thing or two, but he keeps that knowledge to himself.

He wakes before Remus this time. There are blankets near them on the floor, and Draco reaches out to pulls them nearer. He spreads one out over Remus--since that is something he actually _can_ do for him--before curling up in his own. It's a bit weird, now that they're both human and have not a scrap of clothing between them. The blankets take care of that, but it's still pretty intimate.

For all that, Draco doesn't think he minds. Even in this form, Remus smells like the forest. The scent is calming. The heat of his body--Draco can feel it even through the blankets--helps to unknot whatever stresses are left from the return to human form. Propriety demands that Draco care about being entirely naked on the floor next to his ex-professor, but the rug is plush under Draco's sensitized skin, the fire deliciously hot, and Draco can't be arsed.

Draco drifts back into sleep. The next time he wakes up Remus is sitting on the couch, still wrapped only in the blanket. Draco says, "Morning."

Remus says, "Thanks," and shrugs his blanket-enshrouded shoulders so that Draco will know what the appreciation is for.

"Your skin was prickling."

Remus looks away. "Draco, I didn't mean-"

"I know." Draco cuts him off, uninterested in his self-flagellation or his discomfort. This is Draco's home now, he pays good money in rent, and he won't be made to feel ashamed for the things he does in his own home.

"Because I don't want-" Remus looks a bit greyer than he did the morning before.

Draco gets Remus' discomfort, really, but it's not as if Draco is repulsive or as if they planned this or anything that would allow him the level of tetchiness he's displaying. "I didn't move away, did I?"

"I thought that might have been exhaustion."

Draco shakes his head. "When my body recovers from the time without the Wolfsbane, I'll be in considerably better condition than you."

"Thanks," Remus says dryly.

Draco doesn't apologize; it's the truth. "You smelled good."

"Pine and ash."

"And dirt."

"You smell the same way." Remus' voice carries a touch of amusement in it.

Draco hadn't thought about it until that moment, but he supposes he would. "And you were warm."

"And I don't pull away at your scars and your Mark." The comment is nowhere near as hard as it could be. Should be.

Draco doesn't respond immediately. When he does, it's a mere, "There's that."

"Come here," Remus says on a sigh. He does not shift at all, staying curled around himself on the couch, the blanket engulfing him. Draco takes the invitation anyway, moving the few feet it takes to curl up next to him.

Remus stays still even then. It's a stiff stillness, but for all that, not an entirely unnatural one. Draco allows his head to droop onto Remus' shoulder. Only then does Remus move at all, his own head coming to rest gingerly atop Draco's. Draco breathes in, enjoying the way his blanket catches on Remus' as his body expands with air.

*

Draco is processing an invoice for the Les Passions du Paris when Oliver Wood walks in to the shop. He has put on some muscle and his hair now droops down into his eyes, but he otherwise looks the same. It's only forty-eight hours after the last full has set, and Draco's instinctive response is an internal howl. Instead he asks--as politely as he can--"May I help you?"

Wood stutters, "Mal, er. . .Malfoy?"

"I prefer a simple Malfoy," Draco says in his pleasantest tone.

Wood stares at him, his mouth hanging slightly open. Potter rescues the both of them at that moment, ambling in with a piece of parchment in his left hand. "Malfoy, I think there's a prob-" He looks up. "Oh, hey Oliver. I see you've come across my new employee."

"Harry," Wood says, in that gentle tone people only use when they're speaking to the mildly cracked.

Draco stands. "I've some paperwork in the back-"

"No," Potter says, his mouth set in firm lines. "Er, that is, if you wouldn't mind grabbing us some tea, I'd like you to sit in on negotiations."

Draco has a million questions. He asks the one that won't really tell him anything. "The sitting room?"

"Yes, we'll be waiting."

The utter silence between the two men as Draco makes his way out of the front room and into the kitchen is conspicuous. Draco ignores it. He goes about Spelling the water to a boil and steeping a black, caffeine laden brew. He carries the tray into the room where Potter first interviewed him.

Potter pours them each a cup and then takes a sip of his. "Oh, good choice."

Draco can feel the kick of induced energy even as it slides down his throat. It does not pass his notice that Wood only drinks after Draco has swallowed. "Are we renegotiating with Puddlemere?"

Potter shrugs. "Oliver called me. Said he had something to offer."

Wood shakes his head. "This isn't about Puddlemere."

Potter's eyes widen. "You've been traded?"

"No, no. You see, it's like this. You know it's fairly standard for pro teams to have one of the players on as an assistant coach? So that someone has the advantage of seeing things from the inside?"

Harry nods. It's pretty standard practice. Having gotten this acknowledgment, Wood continues. "I've been assisting for Puddlemere, right? Myself and some of the other assists in the league have been meeting up for a drink on the weekends on and off for about a year now. And we got to thinking about how the Quidditch leagues are structured, what with only the best players heading straight out from school onto reserve lines. We figure a lot of raw talent probably gets passed up, either through under-training or not even attending an institution where Quidditch was available."

Wood is slowly becoming more animated, less aware of Draco's presence as he speaks. "So we thought if there was another step, a step in between, that we would have a greater ability to search these rookies out and train them up. A bit like the, er, minor leagues that Muggle sports sometimes have."

"It's a good idea but I don't see-"

Wood cuts Potter off. "Well, several of the assists have made a bit of a fortune in their own right throughout their careers, and they were really enthusiastic. In the end they decided to put a few of these teams together and see if the idea works out."

"And you said you knew someone who'd probably be willing to sign a maintenance contract for a little less than the going rate," Draco finishes.

Wood's smile slips a little. "I didn't promise anything."

Potter looks at Draco. "What do you think?"

"It's a good deal for you, even with the discount. If it works, it builds your name up and you probably have people who trust your skills heading toward the pros, which in turn most likely means contracts with those teams."

Potter asks, "And if it doesn't work?"

Draco thinks it will; he's seen Wood at his most determined. "Then you've done a job for less than you would have otherwise. The money's still yours." Draco bites off the "Why am I here and what are you asking me all of this for?" that wants to follow on his opinion.

Potter looks happy with this assessment. "All right. How many teams are we talking, and do you have any contracts already drawn up, or were you planning on working out everything down to the language between the two of us?"

Wood pulls some scrolls out of his robes and leans over the table, his head nearly touching Potter's when the latter hunches over as well. For a second, Wood's gaze steals to the side, where Draco's still sipping his tea. There's a wary sort of friendliness creeping into his eyes. Draco knows it's a "thank you" of sorts. He does his best to smile, and then hides behind the rim of his cup.

*

As he's about to leave, Draco stops and says what he's been thinking ever since that morning. "It's not that I don't appreciate the gesture of confidence, Potter."

In the pause that follows, Potter lifts his head from the broom he's been trying to diagnose for the better part of the day. His eyebrows inch fractionally higher but he stays silent.

Draco shifts from one foot to the other. Then he makes himself stay still. He's displaying enough weakness verbally without adding physical signs into the mix. "But business is business, and I'm rather hoping for a raise at some point, so if you prefer that I be somewhere else in the shop when associates who might recognize me come by, that's hardly going to upset me."

"Uh huh," Potter says slowly.

Draco, unsure of why he can't seem to stop explaining himself, but unable nonetheless, says, "Well, I suppose it will upset me a bit. I mean, there was a time when my connections would have been a selling point." Draco turns his nose up a bit on this last so that Potter will not question the truth of his explanation.

Potter, the annoying git, questions anyway. "Funny, I thought it might be because you work tirelessly to make this company more efficient."

"I'm your assistant, Potter. That's what you pay me to do."

"No, I pretty much pay you to make sure the ledgers are kept."

Draco tightens his jaw. It's disconcerting that Potter has noticed how much extra effort he's put into this venture. At first he told himself it was because he liked what he was doing for the first time in, well, probably since he'd left Hogwarts. Draco is a fairly detail-oriented person, and he works best by himself, so the offer to get the "business" side of Potter's business in top form was a challenge he wasn't up to resisting. He'd just spent a year in menial jobs, after all.

Draco has stuck to this excuse long after figuring out that his choices were more complicated than that. Potter's choice to keep him on even knowing of Draco's condition, his help in finding Draco a way to live in relative ease has made Draco's fervor for the job into a type of repayment. Draco knows this; he just ignores it.

Draco says, "I like what I do. It's better than cleaning owl-droppings, certainly."

Potter grins at the backhanded compliment. "Glad to hear it."

"Potter, truly. You should send me into one of the other rooms when old acquaintances pop by to offer lucrative contracts. It's a good business practice."

"Maybe, but if I was going to show my distrust of you to the world it was going to be by not suggesting that you go and live with one of my oldest friends. So really, the time for that has passed, wouldn't you say?"

Draco goes preternaturally still. "Oh."

Potter laughs a little. "Oh, you had to have known. I remember how completely off your nut you were about Hermione and Millicent, and you didn't even like Millicent when we were in school."

"I-"

"Don't bother. She's told stories."

Draco blanches. "I apologized."

"And she smiled when she told the stories. Forgiveness isn't forgetfulness, Draco. You don't actually need one to have the other."

Draco supposes that must be true. He can remember every loss to this man before him, every slight on the other boy's part. It's simply that none of that seems very important any longer. Potter has given him a job that he likes, and found him a place to stay, and shares high quality tea with him on a regular basis. "We could work out a system. You could say that you needed to check on something, then come in to consult with me. Or there's always Viewing Charms. That's not unusual with businesses, you know."

"That would defeat the point. Besides everything I've just told you, I have no desire to hide things or lie about myself. I am as I am, and the Wizarding _will_ either accept that or shun me, but I'm through with playing a public relations game based on their wants and needs."

Draco considers saying something mildly sympathetic and then discards the notion. Instead he ignores the latter half of Potter's statement. "It wouldn't defeat the point. Not now that we've had this conversation, anyway."

Potter frowns. Draco resists the urge to call him a stupid git. "I know you trust me, Potter. We're clear on that score. But my advice regarding the salability of your product remains."

Potter's thinking over it. Reluctantly. Draco has learned that particular crease of his forehead. "Viewing Charms, huh?"

"I can bring in some suggestions tomorrow."

"I'll think about it," Potter says, sounding put out. All the same, when he stops to think about one of Draco's suggestions, Draco generally gets his way.

*

Draco slips out of Millicent's lab at eight in the morning. The potion he's been working on for this unit is giving him problems, so he pokes his head in the kitchen, hoping she's around. She's not.

Granger says, "She's sleeping. Her advisor is trying to kill her with grading. I convinced her incoherency wouldn't lead to anywhere good."

Draco nods. "You know anything about the Ravian Brewing Theorem?"

"A little. That's one of the things we've had to seriously discuss how to integrate more usefully into text. My knowledge is more theoretical than anything. It didn't show up on my NEWT and--outside of my sessions with her--I haven't much thought about Potions since. If you give me your text for a bit I could probably help."

Draco hands over the text without arguing. At some point his pride has become drastically less important than passing his NEWTs. He picks up the teapot and shakes it a bit in her direction. "Mind?"

"Just make enough for me."

Draco had planned to anyway. He Summons a couple of mugs and pours the water while Granger hunches over the battered Potions text on loan to him from Hogwarts. When she speaks it's not to explain what the book is saying, or even to demand her tea. It's to say, "You're joining us on the eighteenth, right?"

Draco thinks. It's March. The eighteenth is four days after the last night of the full. "What's the eighteenth?"

"Millicent's birthday. We're doing a dinner at my place."

"You have a place?" Draco asks.

Granger's gaze slants in recognition of his sarcasm. "It's bigger than here. And I don't want her to have to clean up after her own birthday party."

Something is off about the whole thing, and it takes Draco a few moments of intense concentration to remember what it is. "Millicent's birthday is March seventeenth."

"She doesn't like that date," Granger says primly.

Draco thinks it's sort of gracious of Granger not to remind him how he and his cohorts used to tease Millicent that no true Slytherin would have been born on the day commemorating snakes being driven out of the entirety of Ireland. Instead Granger says, "She likes snakes."

"Real ones?" Draco asks, finishing with making the tea. He hands a cup to Granger.

She takes it with a nod of thanks. "Yes. She'd like to have one as a familiar, but can't really afford it at the moment."

Draco experiences a flash of envy that Millicent's only boundary is financial. Most traditional wizarding familiars can sense the wolf and do not respond well to the werewolf's human form. "I didn't know that."

Granger takes a sip. "Not surprising is it? I mean, it's fairly easy to get her to talk about Potions, but until you showed up I didn't know it was possible for her to go on the offensive friendship-wise. She's sort of introverted."

"We gave her a hard time of it," Draco says. Granger doesn't seem to be implicating him in anything, and it's just too much to handle.

"Sure, but I think she's a bit like that deep down. She's a star pupil in her program, but it's like pulling teeth to get her to tell you anything, and I've met her professors. They've all tried to get her more socially involved in their circles, if for no other reason than to have influence over her future decisions, but she's having none of it. Truth be told, I'm not entirely certain why she let me in. Just happy about it."

Draco knows, though. "Because you're Hermione Granger."

She looks up from the book at that. "I haven't a clue what that means coming from your lips."

"Heroine of the Light, Girl Who Captured Viktor Krum's Heart, First Witch To Graduate With A Complete Set Of NEWTs In Over Two Decades, Hermione Granger. It's a bit like having a fairy-princess show up at your door and say, 'mm, I need your help with this,' and then keep coming around for more than just help. What was she supposed to do? Resist?" Draco laughs a little at the thought.

Granger looks uncomfortable. "It isn't like that."

"What's it like, then?"

Granger tilts her head to the side. "It's like I was the girl who never had a single friend until Ron and Harry saved my life from a mountain troll and I lied to keep them out of trouble. It's like she laughed at one of my jokes that first day, when I was nervous because all she'd ever tried to do was wrestle me to the ground. I don't know. It's like she fits me. I guess I just thought she thought I fit her back."

"I. . . That's not something I would know about," Draco admits.

Hermione looks him over. She reaches out to pat his shoulder before returning her attention to the book. "You will."

*

Draco's first attempt at scones is a complete disaster. He's not even entirely sure where he went wrong. Remus was there the whole time. For his part, Remus looks at the results, slightly crisp-like in appearance and says, "Hm. Maybe next time."

Remus' help always leads to more desirable results with Draco's Transfigurations work. Draco flies through subjects like Arithmancy, Runes and Defense, but he's only passable at Transfigurations, Charms and Potions. He only needs five NEWTs to be considered a graduate of Hogwarts. He's thought about dropping one of the three that he has to sometimes struggle with, but Millicent is pretty insistent that he'll pass his Potions NEWT if she has to hold his hand while taking it.

Meanwhile, Remus will occasionally drop into his study space and ask, "Tea?"

He will then capitalize upon Draco's generally grateful, "Yes, please," to ask if Draco needs any Transfigurations help. Also, there's the fact that when Draco mentioned the idea to the Headmistress she pursed her lips and kept noticeably silent.

This leaves Charms. Draco isn't willing to upset Adrian like that. His old housemate has been a forceful ally in Draco's efforts to graduate from day one, despite them never much having known each other. Draco has _incendio_ed enough bridges in his time.  
  
There are times, mostly the mornings when he shows up at work after two or three hours of rest, when he wishes he could just disappoint any one of those people. He vaguely remembers when it would have been easy.

Draco manages scones that are just a tad bit browner than they technically should be on his second try. Oddly it is this small moment that makes him see how nothing is the same as it once was. Severus is dead, Draco's parents are dead, Voldemort is dead, Draco is a werewolf, is living with a werewolf, working for Potter, and can make scones.

_Brand new world,_ Draco thinks. He halves four scones, smears them with butter, drizzles them with clover honey, and offers to share with Remus.

Remus picks one off the plate. Draco asks, "You're invited to Millicent's birthday party, yes?"

Remus nods absently. "Think she'd like a subscription to one of the Potions rags?"

Draco smiles. "They don't gossip about which Masters are dating which in those things, you realize?"

"Oh how wrong you are. They do it in code."

"Have you ever even read one?"

Remus lifts an eyebrow in challenge. "Have you?"

"Well, no," Draco admits. "I'm sure she'd be thrilled. She borrows from the school library and it drives her mad not to be able to deface them at will."

Draco hasn't thought about a gift yet, and the idea calls up a surge of panic. Remus must see something on his face. He says, "Everybody'll be civil. For Millicent's and Hermione's sake if not for yours."

Draco lets him think that's the problem. "Even Weasley?"

Remus winces but, in truth, seems a little amused at Draco's expense. "He'll probably avoid you as much as possible."

That will actually herald improvement between them, so Draco doesn't complain. He swipes the last scone half and stands. "I'm going to be late for work."

"With that boss you have, that's probably cause for firing."

Draco acknowledges the sentiment with an, "Mm," before walking out of the room.

"Tell Harry hello," Remus calls after him.

"Sure," Draco calls back. He stuffs the last scone in his mouth. For something he made, it's bloody tasty.

*

Weasley nods a bit at Draco when he comes into the party. He looks a bit green as he does it, whether at Draco's presence or at the need for civility, Draco can't be entirely sure. Draco's relatively positive he has the same hue as he nods back.

Formalities attended to, Draco spends the rest of a rather pleasant night avoiding Weasley. Weasley returns the favor.

Granger's home resides in the Muggle suburbs of London. The publishing company began inside its walls, and in many ways, the signs are still evident. The smells of printing ink and fresh parchment linger in the air.

It's a three bedroom house, one of which Granger has converted into a study and a second which she keeps for guest purposes. It is clean but not neat, filled with far too many bookshelves to be at all fashionable, and becomes drenched in light as the sun begins to sink right before dinner.

In the back she has a small, fenced in yard. There's a garden filled mostly with magical plants. Draco says to Millicent, "Is there somewhere we can talk?" and she nods and takes him there.

He looks around himself, faintly impressed. Magical gardens aren't all that easy to maintain. "I didn't know Granger was into Herbology."

"Neville and Luna trade her lessons for. . .whatever it is they need at any given moment. She's a quick study. And she likes colors."

The garden is a riot of them, even in mid-March. Severus once told him that Muggle plants wouldn't bloom at this time of year. Draco had just sniffed then at the barbarism of it all, but now he says, "I like magic."

Millicent laughs a little, not having heard Draco's train of thought. She tells him, "I _love_ magic."

Draco wonders if someone ever told Millicent what it's like to be without it. Maybe Severus. His curiosity brings him back to what he wanted to say to her. He puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a key. He takes Millicent's hand, turning it so that the palm is upwards and places the key atop it. "Here. Happy birthday."

"Draco, you weren't- I told Hermione to tell people no gifts."

"I think she forgot."

Millicent snorts. "That girl doesn't forget anything."

"Besides, I would have anyway. When have you ever known me to listen to others?"

Millicent acknowledges the point with a rueful look. "A Gringotts key?"

Draco looks away from her. "To Severus' vault. There's only one thing left in it."

Slowly, Millicent asks, "What's left in it, Draco?" She sounds like she knows.

He answers anyway. "His potions ingredients. The best stuff. Rarest."

"I can't-" Millicent holds the key out to him. "Draco, do you know how much money that stuff is worth? If you don't, I can help you, we can-"

Draco snarls. "I am _not_ selling his things to some _stranger_."

Millicent backs up slightly. "Well, all right, no. I guess not. Maybe I could buy them from you, slowly."

"Why are you so set on having me completely defile his memory through the few things he had to leave anyone?"

Millicent's lower lip trembles. "You know I'm not."

Draco figures that in the vast regions of things a person can do to act like a total arse, making a girl cry on her birthday is pretty high up there. "He would like this. He probably would have left them straight to you if he'd thought about it. Or if he hadn't been so worried about me. But I'm all right. You've helped see to that."

"I'm not sure I'd ever be able to use them," she says. "I'd have a hard time letting go."

"You'd rather they just sat, going to waste? What kind of Potions Master are you?"

"I'm not one, yet."

"He wanted them to get some use. I'm sure it near killed him to leave them to someone whose only use for them would be through financial transaction."

Millicent pulls Draco's hand back to hers and hands him the key. He does not close his fingers over it. "Millicent-"

"One or two per special event. Birthday, holiday, that sort of thing. I'll accept it that way or no way at all."

"There's quite a bit-"

"Then I'll be receiving high quality potions ingredients that I'd otherwise be ill-equipped to afford for at least a few years, won't I?"

Draco looks at the key in his hand. It's a bit tarnished but the design is clean, the metal solid and unbending against his palm. "I suppose you will."

*

As the term progresses Draco can find less and less time for sleep until it's three to four hours at most on the nights that aren't full moons. After the full he can sleep all day which should be refreshing, but mostly just barely makes up for the fact that his body has torn itself up and knit itself back together twice in a twelve hour period.

He casts glamours so that Potter and Remus won't notice. He strengthens them whenever he's around Millicent, who has a tendency to get mad at him for not taking flawless care of himself. She seems to feel it's some sort of insult to her potion for him to take it in less than perfect condition. At least, that's what she always says. Draco has reason to suspect she might just be worried about him. Getting all uppity about her potion is a pretty Slytherin way of expressing her concern.

Draco should see it coming, but somehow doesn't when Adrian says, "You shouldn't abuse Charms like that. You're not good enough at them to get away with it."

Thinking that Adrian might be bluffing, Draco pulls out his best 'I'm sorry, what?' expression. "Abuse Charms?"

Adrian, the little sneak, doesn't bother discussing the matter, just whips out a non-verbal _Finite Incantatum_. Draco, purposefully, hasn't looked at himself in the mirror without the glamour in weeks. He's not entirely shocked at Adrian's forcefully blank expression.

Draco, who's too tired to be all that mad, promises himself he'll work up some righteous indignation later, when he's had more sleep. "Making yourself feel that much prettier?"

"Come on," Adrian says.

They are in Adrian's office. "Where?"

"You really want to expend energy on arguing with me about destination?" Adrian asks.

No, Draco doesn't, but he's old enough and more than experienced enough to know that what he wants to do and what he will do are often two radically different things. "Where?"

Adrian looks annoyed. "My rooms."

Draco picks up his bag, then, and follows. He hasn't been in Adrian's rooms until now, what with them having a marginal teacher/student relationship to each other. Adrian doesn't have much furniture, but there's an over-stuffed couch that looks like heaven to Draco. He stays far, far away from it.

Adrian motions in the direction of the couch. "Go sit down."

"I'll stand," Draco says.

"My couch won't eat you."

That's what Adrian thinks. "You have a table? Somewhere I can lay my books out?"

"We're not studying tonight."

Draco frowns. "If you plan to quit tutoring me-"

"Oh pull it together, Malfoy. I just don't want you accidentally killing yourself--or me, for that matter. Go sit down on my couch and sleep. I'll wake you up in an hour when we're supposed to be done."

"I'll fall behind-"

"I'll find a way to catch you up. It's just an hour. It probably won't even help."

Draco hesitates, his very real desire to pass his NEWTs in a somewhat timely manner warring with the siren song of Adrian's couch. "Maybe if I came up here on the weekend-"

"I said we'd work something out, and I meant it. Go. To. Sleep."

Technically, Adrian is Draco's professor. Draco figures that means he should probably do what Adrian says.

The couch is really, really soft.

*

Remus is worse than Adrian. If he's unsure of whether Draco has eaten or not, he'll bring him food in the middle of his studies and sit with him, making sure Draco actually eats. Draco has tried mildly hexing him in an expression of severe annoyance. Remus evidently earned the right to teach Defence, however, as Draco hasn't been able to land a hex yet. He won't admit that it has become something of a game.

Remus doesn't say anything about Draco's sleeping habits, but Draco has woken up in his bed clearly remembering himself last studying at the kitchen table on more than one occasion. Remus never does more than strip his robes and his shoes and always sets a Waking Charm so that Draco makes it to work on time.

Sometimes, when Remus is up early enough, they eat breakfast together. Remus brews a ginger tea that makes Draco's eyes open a little wider and his brain tingle pleasantly. Draco sips it, and if it's a morning when he knows Remus has put him to bed, he'll say, "Thank you."

Remus generally pretends like Draco is thanking him for the tea. "You're welcome. Did I steep it long enough?"

Draco is not sure what it is about his exhausted and sort of disgustingly helpless state that has managed it, but whatever it is, the latent hostility that Remus had been wont to express in certain ways over the first few months of their co-habitation has mostly fallen away. In a way, this is relieving. In another, it is completely unbalancing.

They don't talk much, at least, not outside the days after the full. On those days, if they feel up to it, they might discuss the current state of wizarding politics--trying not to touch on Death Eaters at large or other topics too close for comfort--or gossip about the people they mutually know. Draco doesn't talk about himself, and Remus does not ask.

There are things Draco sort of wants to ask Remus. Some of them are things he thinks he's probably allowed to ask, like, "What does the transformation feel like after all these years? Does it hurt more?"

He doesn't ask that one because he's afraid of the answer.

Other questions he does not ask because he knows he hasn't the right. The most burning of those is, "What did you do to Severus that he hated you so?"

Draco knows better than to believe it was simply prejudice. After the first transformation, the pain and the fear and the utter self-loathing had nearly overwhelmed Draco. Severus had locked gazes with him, and told him that blind prejudice was a mark of the ignorant, and more damningly, the unwilling to learn.

Draco does not ask, "Were you sharing my cousin's bed?" He can't seem to see any way to fit it into a conversation, or to explain why he cares. He's having trouble explaining that last to himself. He spends a lot of time that he doesn't really have reminding himself that Remus is one of the few people who touches him, and that he's nearly twenty and a virgin, and just about anyone would look good right now.

The problem with this reasoning is that Potter doesn't look good. And while Potter might have been Draco's rival for a good long time, Draco knows fit when he sees it, and Potter is. Adrian hasn't done so badly for himself, but Draco hasn't much bothered to look twice in that direction, either.

It's pretty much only Remus' hands that concern Draco, only Remus' mouth that Draco finds himself transfixed by, and Remus is the only person Draco can ever remember seeing scars on and thinking, _that's sort of. . .nice_. Only the "nice" isn't soft and hesitant, it's low and perhaps even husky.

Draco wonders if that's just latent narcissism, after all, he has those sorts of scars now too. In his newfound self-awareness, he can recognize a long tradition of vanity in himself. But Draco hasn't wanted to look at his own body in over two years, so he doesn't think that's it at all.

Then he wonders if maybe it's simply that they are stuck together, the two of them, mostly whether they like it or not. But that's not really true either, because soon enough, he will have to money to take care of himself, at least a little. He would be alone, but he has that choice, and that's certainly better than no choice at all.

He thinks he wants Remus Lupin to teach him things. Things that won't get him anywhere on his NEWTs.

Draco doesn't ask, "Do you ever look at me and think about kissing?" because he's afraid of the answer.

*

Eventually, Remus begins to talk anyway. Eventually comes only about four months after Draco moves in with him. It feels like longer, the questions tearing at Draco's insides even more painfully than the wolf at the full. Of course, he doesn't start with the things Draco wants to know. Draco would think this was spite, only he hears what Remus is telling him, and it sounds nothing like spite.

Spite is sometimes sibilant and drawn out, sometimes barbed and momentary. Remus' honest, "I haven't lived with anyone since Hogwarts. It's hard to believe how much you can miss the sound of another person's footsteps," is plain. He says it with a normal cadence and follows it with a bite of his sandwich.

Draco doesn't agree aloud, and Remus doesn't seem to expect it of him. Draco knows that for all that Remus likes finally having someone else around, there are downsides to Draco's co-habitation as well. Remus gets annoyed and even snappy with Draco's habit of forgetting there's only so much hot water or leaving candles burning when he's not in a room. There are certain traits left from his upbringing that not even years of privation have been able to reprogram.

When Remus wanders in on Draco, who is hunched over his homework at the kitchen table, he says, "It's two in the morning."

Draco straightens a little. "I notice you're not in bed."

Remus smiles, slightly chagrined. "I had a nightmare."

Draco doesn't manage to hold back a look of surprise at the information. He's never once heard Remus having a nightmare. He knows he must wake Remus with his frequently. Also, interested in the knowledge or not, Draco hasn't yet learned to be comfortable with bald-faced admissions. "Oh."

Remus rifles through their embarrassingly large stockpile of chocolate goods and finds a plain dark bar. He sits down at the table and places it between them. "Want some?"

The notion of comfort sliding, thick and almost-bitter, down his throat is too much for Draco to refuse. He breaks off a bit and leaves the rest for Remus. Draco can't tell if it's a reward or just late night conversation when Remus says, "Mostly, when I have them, the nightmares are about the Wolfsbane not working. I get accustomed to it, that sort of thing. The magic behind the transformation mutates. I don't even know. Sometimes my subconscious is more creative than I give it credit for being."

Draco, unused to offering comfort, tries, "Millicent would fix it."

They're both werewolves, and they both know enough to know that certain things can't necessarily _be_ fixed. Remus doesn't snipe at Draco. He doesn't even mention any of this. He simply says, "These days I wake up to my house and my chocolate. It's not as scary."

Draco knows how that feels. He feels like that every morning, even when he hasn't had nightmares.

Remus chews thoughtfully at another piece. "When I wake from the ones about James and Lily, Sirius. . . I still miss them."

"Severus," Draco says. He can't make it into a sentence like Remus can. He hasn't had long enough.

Remus offers him more chocolate. Draco takes it. For a second he thinks it will get caught in his throat. Then it melts, yields to him, soothes some of the raw skin--scraped bloody by that single word.

Remus says, "I'm sorry about- I'm sorry for your loss." He sounds like he means it.

Draco never knew Lily nor James, the mudblood and the blood traitor. The enemies vanquished in the Dark Lord's wake. Draco's mind screams a subversive, freeing "not really!" because he has figured out about Potter's love-magic protection. Draco can put two together with two and come up with the power of love. Draco never even knew Sirius, his much-maligned older cousin. But Remus knew Severus, had wronged him, had been wronged by him. Draco says, "Would you, um, do you want to tell me? About them?"

"It's two in the morning," Remus says again, but he's smiling. Draco isn't sure, but he thinks this may be the first time he's actually offered Remus anything in return for the things Remus has so consistently, unfailingly given him. He knows--without knowing how he knows--that caring for him makes things easier for Remus in some way that Draco doesn't understand, having never taken on the care of another being. Suddenly it makes just the tiniest bit more sense, because Remus' joy at Draco's evident concern feels nearly as nice as the chocolate.

"Two-thirty, actually. And we're both up anyhow."

Remus says, "I don't know where to start."

He starts somewhere, and it's good enough.

*

It takes a month of stories freely given before Draco manages to ask, "What was my cousin like?"

Remus screws up his mouth. Draco says, "It's just that I never met him."

"I've been telling you-"

"Stories about James and Lily." Draco sometimes looks at his employer and wonders if he knows Potter's parents better than Potter ever will.

"James was your cousin, too. Somewhere along the way."

That's stating the blatantly obvious. There were _Lupin's_ in Draco's family line if one cared to look back far enough. Draco used Hogwarts' collection of wizarding family histories to check. Draco can only figure one reason for Remus to be so reticent over this issue. "Were you lovers?"

Remus' laughter is sudden, but genuinely amused. "Sirius was far too much work for me."

That doesn’t really fit into Draco's sense of Remus. Given everything about their current situation, he would have expected a certain level of maintenance to be a turn-on for him. "Oh."

"Sirius used to consider anything that walked fair game, and I just never had the energy to make myself more interesting than everyone and everything else."

Oh. Draco's aware he's sort of mono-syllabic at this point. "Then-"

"You don't talk much about Severus either, I notice. And I know it wasn't like that for the two of you. Severus had more codes of conduct than your average high class Wizard's Club."

Draco has never thought about himself and Severus that way before. He's surprised that it doesn't bother him. He knows what he and Severus had. "He cared about me."

"And when that's not something you can take for granted. . ." Remus trails off with a shrug.

"Why'd they hate each other?" Draco asks, because suddenly, despite the Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry, it seems odd that these two men who were so central to Remus and himself were enemies.

Remus rubs at the back of his neck. "I suppose that Severus was a spiteful child and Sirius a cruel one, and the two never mixed well."

"And." Draco looks away. "And you? Were you cruel?"

"I was negligent," Remus' tone is bitter. "A crime far more damning."

Suddenly, Draco doesn't want to know what all these adjectives mean. "Potter and I, maybe, were a bit like that."

Remus is silent for a long time, probably deciding if he's going to take the reprieve. His, "Possibly," is very, very soft.

"Holding on to all that," Draco presses his lips together. "Well, it didn't do Severus any good."

"Sirius neither," Remus admits. And Draco, who has felt just a little bit like a traitor ever since he started accepting help from Gryffindors, nods.

*

By mid-July, Draco is ready to take his NEWTs. McGonagall does as she promised she would and cajoles the necessary number of Ministry proctors into giving a personal set. He takes one after work each day for a week. On Friday, Remus shows up at Hogwarts. Draco says, "This is a bit out of your way."

Remus smiles mildly. "Thought you might like a late dinner."

Draco is hungry and exhausted. He's worried that he missed a full section on the Charms NEWT he just completed. He doesn't miss the fact that this offer might perhaps be a date. "Dinner sounds about right."

Remus starts walking toward a spot beyond the wards. "I was thinking Italian, if that's fine?"

Draco is too tired to be in charge of making decisions, but he is also too tired not to warn, "I don't know that I'm able to Apparate that far right at the moment."

"No I meant-" Remus stops. "You probably didn't frequent Muggle eating establishments much as a child."

"Practicing your ability for astounding understatement on me?"

Remus smirks. "Am I improving? The place I'm thinking of isn't all that far from Diagon."

"Oh." Draco doesn't move.

"Draco?"

"You know-" he feels stupid saying this, admitting it, but it's true. "You know what purebloods say about Muggles."

Remus must catch on to Draco's hesitation, to his neutral, questioning tone. He doesn't tense at all, merely says, "Quite a few things, from what I hear. Are you referring to the stuff about them being diseased, or that they like to poison, burn, stone, and inflict other types of harm on magical-adepts when they find them out?"

"Either," Draco says. He swallows. "Both."

They have reached the end of the wards. Remus turns to Draco. "I've lived among them, Draco. My mother was one. You live with me. You eat with me. You. . ."

Draco is relieved that Remus has the consideration to stop there. Draco's dealing with enough demons, he doesn't need Remus bringing up more. "When I first," Draco tenses then, "when I was first bitten, I still thought-"

"That werewolves were evil, half-breed, disgusting creatures?"

Draco nods, his neck and shoulders tight.

Remus sighs. "Yes, I know. I _know_. And you were raised with all these beliefs, I get that."

Draco waits a moment. "But you still think I should go have dinner with you at a Muggle restaurant?"

Remus' fingers drift along the line of Draco's right cheek. "Yes. More than before."

There's no doubt, now, no doubt what Remus means by his offer. It should be too much, to accept a man's offer of dinner at a Muggle restaurant. It should make Draco quail in terror, run in horror.

Draco does neither of those things. He knows--has long known--that he cannot be the child his parents raised him to be. That child was not a werewolf, not a Death Eater, not without prestige or wealth, and never, never unsure of who he was, what his options were. He closes his eyes, and focuses on the warm, roughened touch of Remus' fingers. "Side-along?" he asks.

Remus does all the work for him.

*

On his first date, Draco learns two things: 1) baked ziti is one of his favorite things _ever_ and 2) there are whole streets, whole neighborhoods, in London where nobody even thinks to look at two blokes sharing a meal. In fact, a date pairing involving more than one sex is far more likely to call attention to itself. (Well, all right, Draco only knows of one neighborhood, but that's a vastly wider world of possibilities than he'd believed available to him before Remus took him out.)

On his second date he learns how to use Muggle money.

On his third date, he learns how to ask someone out. Until then, he was allowing Remus to set the pace. The second date followed about two weeks after the first, and the third another three. Two things occur to force Draco into action. The first is that Draco negotiates a stunningly large new account for Potter, earning himself a sizeable bonus. This gives him an excuse to say, "Potter gave me a bonus for settling that Devils account, I'd like to use some of it to celebrate."

Secondly, Draco's patience, which was never infinite nor unyielding, comes to an end. "This weekend, perhaps?"

Remus smiles. "Celebration sounds good. What did you have in mind?"

"I, ah-" Draco stops speaking to keep himself from the spluttering that is so obviously trying to make him seem positively unpolished, "hadn't really gotten to that part, actually."

"I suppose a better question, then, is what would you _like_ to do?"

That's not just a better question, it's a perfect question, and the sad truth is, Draco hasn't a clue. He remembers, hazily, constantly telling Severus all the things he wanted, but unlike when he would tell his parents, it had never changed anything. Draco is not stupid, never has been, and despite the fact that he was battling seventeen years of conditioning, it did not take him very long to understand that he wouldn't get what he wanted. So he stopped thinking about what that was.

Altogether.

There, of course, had been the day-to-day necessary type sorts of things: somewhere to stay out the full, Wolfsbane, food, schooling. But Draco has long since given up on even bothering with what it is he _wants_ to eat, or what sorts of subjects he likes. Draco eats some more of his dinner, playing for time in which to formulate a response.

Remus looks at him. Draco can tell he's hiding a cache of amusement under the shrew stare, but all he says is, "We seem to do well with dinner. Perhaps something special?"

Remus is right on both aspects. All three of their dates have been for dinner, and not one has gone wrong yet. It's only sensible to continue in this vein. And something special is precisely what's called for. It's not that Draco doesn't have places that he thinks of as "special," but realistically Draco knows that word only applied to those places in a different context than the one he lives in now. If Remus and he tried to set one foot in the door of most of the places his parents had treated him to as a burgeoning adult, well, the experience would be special, but not in any positive sense.

There are places, however, now that Draco is opening his mind, letting the ideas and notions of his younger self flood back in, that he remembers wanting to go. The flood is more of a trickle, the memories hesitant to reintroduce themselves lest they be summarily shoved aside once more. There's enough, however, for him to ask, "Know anywhere to go in Lisbon?"

Remus doesn't cover his shock. "Portugal?"

"Unless you know of another Lisbon."

Remus shakes his head, ignoring the light sarcasm. "I haven't seen much of the continent. I haven't seen much of anywhere, really."

Which only settles the matter for Draco, because wizards aren't meant to stay in one place all the time. Not since Pippi Parsonbrook discovered the correct way to Apparate, anyhow. In 842 A.D. "I can ask around. Surely someone would know."

"I'll owl Bill. I think I remember one of Fleur's friends doing some work out there for a while."

Draco nods, distracted. "You've really never traveled?"

"Extensive travel takes both money and time, Draco." Remus says this gently, but with a bit of warning edge.

"And a sure place to stay," Draco says a moment later. "For, well. Yes, to stay."

"I imagine that if we ever wanted, Millicent would owl us the potion," Remus says softly, maybe even a bit hopefully.

Draco looks at him, understanding that even as this is a third date (and they have just promised themselves a fourth), even as the two of them are living together, Remus has just offered something more. Draco can't say exactly what, but he knows it's something. "Probably."

"For now, though, will Saturday night do?"

Draco thinks he's supposed to be the one asking that, but it's hard to mind. "Perfectly."

*

Draco doesn't know how Remus does it, but he finds the same kinds of streets in Portugal. Streets where nobody looks at them for walking into a restaurant together. Somewhere between the kale soup and the filhos (maybe during the roast) Draco asks.

Remus looks slightly abashed. "It's a Muggle thing."

They're sitting in a Muggle restaurant, and the filhos are still melting right over Draco's tongue to slide satisfactorily down his throat. Draco says, "They do seem a bit more at ease with. . ."

"Alternate lifestyles?"

Draco has never once heard the word "life" compounded with "style" but that sounds about right. "You'd think they wouldn't be so-"

"Finicky about unknown powers?" Remus finishes for him.

"It's not all propaganda. You must know that. There were burnings and torture and I don't always know what was real and what I just came to believe was real but some of it was. Real."

"I know," Remus says softly. "They fear the unknown. We all do, really, it's why purebloods are so defensive against contamination of the blood. It allows for the possible."

Draco has never thought of it that way, of what staying with the things that one knows to be true _doesn't_ allow to happen. He repeats, "How do you find these places?"

"Ever used a computer?"

"No," Draco says, a little freaked out by the idea, "but I've heard of one. Does that count?"

"Sure," Remus says. Draco thinks he's being humored.

"What does a computer have to do with you finding random restaurants in erm, male-male friendly sections of foreign cities?"

"Hm. Did you father have any Codex Texts?"

"Certainly," Draco says. He'd rarely been allowed use of them, they were too valuable for a child to handle, but he knew basically how they worked. "Call up any text within the codex and it will become visible on the page. That's what a computer does?"

"In a way. A computer has an infinite number of, well, sources more than texts. And if one knows how to search for it, he can call up any sort of information he desires."

Draco remembers the hefty weight of each of those Codex Texts, the way they were all bound in heavy, darkened leather. They rarely had titles. Occasionally, one would have a rune, something vague and open to interpretation, gilded onto the spine. Draco liked to run his fingers over the runes and think of all the things they could mean. "Maybe you could show me."

Remus hides his surprise well, but not well enough that Draco doesn't notice. He recovers quickly, with a promise filled, "Of course. I can have Hermione bring hers over one morning. She made me outfit the house for wireless just in case."

Draco would like Remus to untangle most of that sentence for him, but he senses he's dealt with enough new information, enough pioneering into his own perception of reality for one night. Draco eats his last filho, waiting until he has carefully chewed and swallowed the local donut-like pastry to say, "This place was a good choice."

Remus smiles with closed lips around his almond cake.

*

Draco's NEWT scores arrive on a Thursday morning, just as Draco is leaving for work. After a moment's consideration, Draco leaves them on the table without opening them, and Apparates to his job. Potter looks up at the sound of his arrival. He says, "I made oatmeal. With berries."

Draco pulls the files that he left unfinished the evening before and takes them into the kitchen. The berries, he notices, are fresh.

Two hours later, Draco looks up from the new contract he's trying to write up for Puddlemere. Puddlemere's been with Potter nearly since the opening of the company. Draco and Potter agree that loyalty should be rewarded. Draco has been working on how exactly to do this but to make the contract worth Potter's while. It's not that complicated, just takes a fair amount of attention to his words. He asks, "You wanted Wallace as the new contact, correct?"

"Are you comfortable with Wallace?"

Draco, who was expecting a simple, "Yes," isn't quite sure what to say. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Potter looks as confused by Draco's question as Draco feels by Potter's. "You probably deal with the contacts more than I do. And if you don't now, you probably will as things go on."

"I will have my NEWTs any day now, you realize, Potter." Draco isn't sure why he doesn't say he's already received them. He's fairly sure he managed all six. Then again, he isn't entirely sure why he didn't open them in the first place. He's waited so very very long for that owl.

Potter tilts his head. "I figured. You sat the tests about two months ago."

"I suppose you think I couldn't get a job anywhere else, even with them." Draco knows Potter's probably right about that, but the assumption burns all the same.

Potter frowns a bit. "Actually I just thought you liked working here. I knew I'd have to give you a raise when the NEWTs came in, obviously anywhere else would. I thought we'd talk about that when it happened. With the new contracts coming up, I don't think it's going to be an issue. Unless you know something I don't?"

"You planned a raise in?"

"I, er, planned the idea of a raise in. I haven't actually looked at any of the books pretty much since I hired you."

Draco pulls out his best _you complete and utter moron_ look. "You hired your childhood enemy whom you hadn't seen in a year and then didn't even check his work?"

Potter grins. "When you put it like that, it sounds kind of stupid."

"How else is there to put it?"

Potter is still smiling, but his eyes are serious. "I gave someone who needed help a chance and trusted him not to curse me while I was turned the other way."

Draco sighs. "You really do need me around, don't you?"

"I do. Also," Potter's eyes remain serious, "I like having you around. You do all the work I don't like doing. And I'm tired of having to be constantly suspicious. I'm done with that. If you're going to steal from me, well, at least I won't have to be doing the books while you're doing it."

"I want a nice raise."

Potter nods. "I pretty much figured."

Draco looks down at what he was doing when this all started, intent on going back to work now that they have that figured out. He puts Wallace down as the contact; so far he's been perfectly civil to Draco. He's reminded then of the other question he wanted to ask, the question that's been on his mind all morning. "Where'd you get fresh berries? They're nowhere near in season."

Potter says, "Friend," and his voice is nonchalant, but his face reddens from cheek to cheek, bridge of the nose included. Potter looks down at the broom he's fiddling with, clearly intent on not saying anything more. Draco leaves him be for the moment.

He'll have plenty of time to coax Potter's secret from him.

*

Remus is working at the table when Draco comes home. His NEWT scores are untouched. Or at least, if Remus opened them, he did a beautiful job of magically resealing the envelope. Draco doesn't think Remus did.

He sits at the table. Remus asks, "You wanted someone around to celebrate with?"

"I like your confidence," Draco says.

Remus looks up from his work. "You can't possibly be worried."

Draco's not, not really. "No, something else."

"I take it that's the most you know?"

"I'm staying with Potter regardless. They don't exactly change much."

"I thought you liked working for Harry."

"You and everybody else," Draco mutters.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing, I do. I do like working for him, I just meant-"

"That the tangible rewards for the amount of work you put in are less than overwhelming?"

"Evidently, I'm still a Malfoy after all," Draco says tightly.

"Or is it that you wish Severus was here to see this, rather than me?" Remus asks the question lightly, but there is jealousy and maybe even a touch of bitterness to the inquiry.

Draco spends the time during the ensuing silence to remember how to breath without each breathe catching just short of his lungs. "I _do_ wish Severus was here. I'd have liked for it to have been both of you."

Remus looks at him inscrutably. "That may be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Possibly, I should have said earlier."

Remus doesn't respond to that. "Do you want me to open it?"

Draco's fingers feel numb at the thought of reaching across the table. "That would- Thanks."

Remus sweeps the scroll off the table and cracks the seal. His smile is almost instantaneous. "Five O's and one E."

"Charms?"

"Runes."

Draco gasps. Remus laughs. Draco reaches out and shoves him. He adds a, "Git," for emphasis, but the impact is somewhat muted by the fact that Remus captures his hands and pulls him in, kissing him thoroughly.

Draco's leaning over Remus, his feet barely on the floor. It's not comfortable at all. He can't stop to think about that, though, not with his mind exploding in a pattern of, "oh wow, oh, oh."

By the time Remus pulls back ever so slightly, Draco is completely imbalanced, held upright only by Remus' hands and his intense desire to keep his lips connected to the other man's. Remus says, "Congratulations were in order, I felt."

Draco licks his lips. They feel bigger than usual. "Five O's is good."

"If I hadn't been living with you for quite some time I might fear I'd humbled you."

Draco, who has never felt anything like that in his life, thinks Remus might be wrong in assuming he hasn't.

"You can't be comfortable."

Draco isn't. "Couch?" he asks hopefully.

Remus has to help Draco stand.

*

Six days and thirteen make-out sessions later, Draco comes home to be greeted by a distinct metaphor for his relationship with Remus as he sees it.

The metaphor is a matted, furry pile of bones, curled up as near to the fire as it can manage. Draco asks, "What is that?"

Remus says, "Dog. Irish Wolfhound, I think, but her coat is heavier. So maybe some kind of a mix."

"Did we have a dog when I went to work this morning?"

Remus looks concerned. "You aren't afraid of dogs, are you?"

"Hardly. I just haven't really-" _Ever been around them,_ is the true end to that sentence, but Draco has already admitted to virginity once this week. That's quite enough. He opts for changing the subject. The only thing that comes to mind as useful is, "That's a Muggle dog."

It takes a second for Draco to realize that, "Um, _why_ do we have a dog?" or, "Wait, isn't this my house, too?" might have been better approaches.

Luckily, Remus merely says, "Well-spotted," and turns back to his work. Which is as sure a sign as any that he's thinking about if anyone would really miss Draco, or think to look for his dead body.

"That wasn't what I meant," Draco says, when "sorry," is probably the better option. "I just. . .where'd you get it?"

"Her."

"Huh?"

"The dog, _it_ is a her."

Though Draco can't much see why it matters, he's willing to placate his boyfriend, who has willingly stopped before getting to the actual sex part fourteen times now in deference to the fact that Draco is still mildly freaked out by the thought of doing that with another man. Not that he isn't interested. His mind has gone there over and over and _over_ again. But when Remus' hands wander farther down than Draco is expecting, he still jumps. Remus often bites him then, just a little more harshly than is strictly comfortable but he also stops, and Draco recognizes that for the enormous kindness that it is. "Ah. Where'd you get her?"

Remus looks over at the dog. "I didn't, really. She sort of. . .got me."

Draco frowns. "Maybe if you told me the story from the beginning?"

Remus taps his quill against the parchment upon which he's been writing. Small dots of ink appear in random patterns. "I was working earlier today. That Basics text that Hermione and I have been developing for Durmstrang."

Draco nods. The book has been driving Remus crazy. Durmstrang's cultural approaches to magic and education are drastically different from Hogwarts'. Draco has been trying to help; quite a few of his one-time family friends graduated from there. Still, the project has been keeping Remus up nights.

"I wasn't getting anywhere so I thought I'd take a walk."

Draco knows that Remus only takes walks in one place. The same place they go to play when they're wolves. Remus likes the different perspective. Draco prefers to keep the two things as separate as possible.

"I literally stumbled across her. It was overcast and with all the trees I didn't see her. She whimpered, and I stopped to see what I'd hit but when I put my hand to her it came away covered in blood. She got caught by something; I'm not entirely sure what. I think it was probably Muggle, those woods aren't magically-infested."

Draco glances over. If he looks carefully, he can see patches where there isn't any fur, where the skin is pinker than it should be. "You healed her?"

"Just enough to Apparate with her. Then I put in a call to Hagrid and he came and fixed her up. Says she's underweight, too. We couldn't find any identification tags on her, but she was scared of us. Hagrid thinks someone beat her."

Draco understands--that isn't the sort of thing Remus can just walk away from. Draco, after all, is living with Remus. He says, by way of reparation, "I always wanted a familiar."

"Dogs are nice, during the full," Remus says, but the looks he casts at the dog is somewhat doubtful. Remus' doubt always portrays itself as perilously close to hurt.

Draco says, "We can't just call our familiar 'dog.'" He doesn't know if a non-magical animal can be a familiar, or if two people can share a familiar, or really anything that might be useful information in this situation. He does know that Remus wants the dog to heal.

Draco can't do anything about that. He can give them something to call her, though, some way to address her when they want to reassure her. "How about. . .Adhara. We could call her Addie for short."

"Adhara." Remus looks at Draco. "Proper name for the Canis Majoris."

"Potter told me about Black. Sirius." Draco isn't entirely comfortable admitting this. He cannot admit that he asked. "Proper name for the Canis Majoris. I thought- But if it's not-"

"It is. It's good." Remus smiles gratefully at Draco. "Addie. It's good."

In front of the fire, Addie sleeps on, giving no indication of her opinion.

*

Draco grumbles about having to get up earlier in the mornings, and about the drudgery of looking after Addie. When he runs his fingers over her soft ears, though, she makes whimpering sounds. Draco has heard himself make those same sounds once or twice under the not-quite-so-tender mercy of Remus' mouth. She makes Draco feel powerful. Special. Loved.

Of course, then she starts getting better and begins to bark in terror whenever either of the men try coming anywhere near her. Draco thinks she can smell the wolf, that they're going to have to give her over to Hagrid if they want her to live. Remus says, "Dogs don't mind the wolf."

Draco, softly, says, "She's not an animagus."

Remus falters for a second before grinning. "If she was she'd already have bitten us."

Draco can't really share Remus' chipper attitude. To his disgust, having gone without a pet for the whole of his life, the thought of having to give Addie up makes his stomach turn in disappointment. Remus must notice something because he pulls Draco to him and says, "Truly, she'll come around."

Draco wraps his arms around Remus and pretends to believe him.

*

Draco drags Potter home with him for dinner one night. Potter has been quiet lately. Draco thinks it has something to do with Berry Girl--as Draco has taken to calling Potter's mystery crush in the lack of any serious information. Potter accepts the demand that he join Draco and Remus for dinner, and follows Draco docilely back to the house.

At the sound of two Apparitions, Addie's head bolts up. She looks from Draco to Remus, who is sitting at the table. Then she looks at Potter.

It takes her all of two seconds to be across the room, cowering behind Remus. Not even thinking about his actions, Draco slides to his knees and makes his way to her, all the time mumbling things like, "Stupid dog," in tones that make them sound like reassurances. To his surprise, Addie lets him get near her, lets him touch her. She then promptly tries to curl herself onto Draco's lap. As Addie is nearly as big as Draco, this does not work out quite so well as she was probably imagining.

Draco does not stop petting her. He does look up at Potter and say, "So this is Addie."

Potter says, "Yeah."

By the time Addie has calmed down enough for Draco to feel comfortable leaving her, Remus has already set dinner out on the table. Draco kisses the top of Addie's head in silent thanks. He's not unappreciative of her trust. He tells her, "Potter's not really the kicking-puppies type."

Addie has probably picked the wrong champion, but Draco figures he should be allowed to come out on top at some point. Even if it is only in the eyes of big, wounded mutts.

Draco joins Remus and Potter at the table. He watches and learns as Remus slowly cajoles not just conversation from Potter, but actual information.

Potter, as it turns out, is pining for Gabrielle Delacour. The two met recently at a baby shower for Fleur, and evidently the younger sister has grown up to outstrip even her veela grandmother for looks. She has an internship with the transfiguration professor at Beauxbatons and hopes eventually to have her own classroom.

According to Potter, "I think she still likes me enough given that whole sort-of-saving-her-life debacle, but not, erm, _enough_."

"Have you spoken since the shower?" Remus asks.

"I sent her the names of some books Hermione told me to recommend. Transfiguration stuff, up and coming."

"And she sent you the berries," Draco points out.

"As thanks for the list."

Remus tilts his head. "Did you send her a thank you note?"

"I may have been raised by wolves, but I recovered quite nicely," Potter says primly.

"Don't insult wolves," Remus tells him.

"Hm, point," Potter concedes.

"You should see if she's interested in dinner," Draco says. He has absolutely no real experience to offer Potter, but the whole dinner thing has worked out pretty well for Remus and himself.

"I'd probably seem a bit desperate. She's not exactly next door."

"France isn't such a huge Apparative jump," Remus says. "She'll like that you put extra effort into it."

Potter considers that. Miserably, he says, "I really like her."

Draco goes to dig the chocolate out of the stash he knows Remus keeps. He's got nothing else to help Potter with his problems.

*

Draco doesn't, _can't_ really believe Remus until the first full when Addie's around. He expects her to run from the two wolves. Remus is twice her size, Draco is larger than Remus by a good half. At first, when both wolves are lying on the floor, recovering from the trauma of transformation, she is very very still.

Then she whimpers, plods over to the two of them, and nudges at them with her nose. Remus nudges back. In wolf-language, it's a clear, "We're fine."

Draco adds his nose to the fray.

Reassured, Addie barks at them. If he were human, Draco would blink. She's never made a noise louder than a whine up till this point.

Remus has already told her, in English, where they go when they are wolves, that she doesn't have to join if the woods hold bad memories for her. He reiterates the sentiment in a series of short howls.

Draco isn't sure Addie really understands, because when the two of them begin their tri-monthly journey, she just trots along behind them. He hopes this doesn't destroy what little trust they've obviously been able to build.

When they arrive at the woods, Addie pulls in closer, and with a look in Draco's direction, Remus moves so that she's between the two of them. They run, as they always do, until exhaustion nearly cripples them. There's no playing, just running, which allows Addie to stay between the two of them, to keep pace and bark in abandon.

It occurs to Draco that he might just like this feeling. He's still quite sure he would trade it in if a cure were to come along, but the specter of the full no longer haunts him with the strength of his past, or the losses he has endured. It is now just another three nights in his life with Remus. Their life with Addie.

In the morning, when they've shed their wolfskins, and have dragged themselves to the nearest bed--Draco's--Addie wiggles atop the two of them, worming her way into the middle. Draco, too tired to fight, rolls a bit to allow her some more room.

Remus sighs and curls an arm over her. "All right, but just this once."

Later that afternoon, when Addie lopes off to find the bowl that always magically has her breakfast waiting for her, Draco moves in next to Remus. Despite their mutual nakedness, the gesture is only intimate due the fact that Draco thinks he might love this man. Whatever that means. He had thought, at first, that it meant mutual loneliness and enough similarities to be going on with, but of late he's considered the possibility that it might have something to do with the way Remus laughs both with him and--when necessary--at him, how his hands are gentle when Draco is sore, and how he doesn't seem to have expectations, just a willingness to accept things the way they are.

He says, "She likes us."

Remus mumbles, "Told you," kisses Draco's forehead, draws him in like he previously had with Addie, and falls back asleep.

*

After a few more makeout sessions Draco begins to wonder if Remus isn't being thoughtful but rather finds everything but Draco's lips physically repulsive. Or there's the chance that Draco being the same age as Harry--and his one time student--freaks Remus out. Then Remus says,--sounding a bit desperate even as his calm words belie this sentiment--"Millicent mentioned that you weren't terribly open about your sexuality until recently."

Draco looks at Remus impassively.

Remus nods. "Not what you thought your parents wanted to hear?"

"Is your assessment of that situation somehow different?"

Remus, who has been sitting in the armchair, comes and joins Draco on the sofa. "What was their reaction after the bite?"

Draco still marvels at how easily Remus can say words like, "bite," or "The Potion," or "werewolf." Sure, he's got over thirty years of experience as opposed to Draco's four. (Well. Almost four.) Draco's not sure he'll ever be able to say things like that without concentrating intensely first, without reassuring himself that he's safe to say them, without his breath catching on the first syllable. Remus is looking at him, but not rushing him to answer. Draco says, "They were angry."

"At you or for you?" Remus asks the question softly.

"For me," Draco tells him defensively. He can only hold onto his ire for seconds, as Remus soothes his knuckles over the vertebrae in Draco's neck.

"Maybe they would have understood more than you give them credit for."

Draco blinks. No Gryffindor has ever had to suggest to him that he was the one underestimating his parents. "Being attacked is one thing, but-"

"Oh, but it's not. You could have run faster or fought harder or-"

"It was Greyback!" Draco yells, because sure, maybe he wasn't a six year old at the time, or anything--Draco tries not to think about six year old Remus running and running and running from Greyback, can't, it makes him sick--but even his strongest curses, most fervently shouted, had only slowed the wolf. Remus knows his own power to overcome a human, Draco knows his.

Remus' hand is now gripping his neck. "Draco. I meant that is what parents have said to their children. Not that it was realistic."

Right. Right, Draco should have known that. He needs to listen. "They didn't say that. I said it, once or twice. Not to them. Just-"

"Yes." Remus says. "And if you thought that about the wolf, how much more would you have thought it about something you really did believe to be an innate flaw?"

Draco tenses. Remus is right, of course, in the end his sexuality was no more escapable than Greyback. Perhaps less. Which doesn't mean he hasn't tried. "I. . ." Draco shifts, moving in closer to Remus. "Pansy was the girl everyone in my year wanted. So I told myself that my tastes were merely tending toward the less-pedestrian. But I didn't want any of the girls from Beauxbatons either, no matter how good their family was, or how strong their magic, or how pretty. I didn't even like girls I wasn't supposed to like. And then there was, well, Blaise, and how in the world anyone could _not_ want someone who looks like that is- Well, so I figured maybe it was just Blaise, only then it was-"

After a few seconds, Remus asks gently, "Severus?"

"He never-"

"No. You were sixteen, and his student."

"Not his student. Not after we murdered Professor Dumbledore." Draco knows it's stupid to grant the man the respect of his title after everything Draco has done but it's all he has now, his only way of respecting the situation he forced Severus into.

"Some things last outside of the official circumstance." Remus looks away.

Draco says, "He forgave me." Draco doesn't know that he could have ever done the same. To Draco, it is the most lasting testament of Severus' love for him, even if it wasn't specifically the kind Draco wanted.

Remus turns his face back to Draco's. He smiles sadly. "Good."

Draco says, "I thought you had too."

Remus laughs. It's husky, full of something Draco isn't sure he understands. "I forgave you for Albus at the same moment I forgave you for the pranks you played on me your third year. I realize that the consequences were drastically varied, but they all came out of youth and stupidity. I held that against someone once."

Draco grabs Remus' hand. Between Potter and Granger, he has pieced together the story of Remus in his school years and the first uprising of Voldemort. "You were fairly young yourself."

Remus grips on rather tightly. Draco stays silent despite the slight pain. Remus says, with no pity in his voice, "I was your age. If I think of you as all that young-"

"Yes, right, avoid that," Draco says hastily. "Still, my point-"

"Yes," Remus agrees.

Things are quiet for a long time before Draco says softly, "I haven't liked hiding who I am."

"But?" Remus correctly prompts.

"It's. . .good that you're my first."

Remus presses his forehead to Draco's and says, "I love you," all in one breath, like it's simply a part of his body's functions.

*

Gabrielle Delacour drops by Potter's business one morning, acting like she was in the neighborhood. Draco realizes two things: 1) objectively, he can admit that Potter has good taste in women, and 2) Delacour probably wasn't even in the same country's worth of neighborhood.

Draco watches Potter misread every single advance she makes for nearly five minutes before he just can't take it any longer. He walks up to where they are talking quietly--but not quietly enough--and says, "Excuse me," to Delacour.

She gives him a polite nod of her head. He says to Potter, "Sorry, I need those invoices I asked you about earlier."

"You said it wasn't urgent," Potter says, with a clear _what are you doing_ expression of distress on his face.

"I lied," Draco lies.

Potter's glance makes its way in between Delacour and Draco, but he evidently decides that business hours means the invoices have to come first. He apologizes to her, "Erm, sorry about this, I'll be right back. Please don't leave."

As soon as Potter is gone Draco weaves a quick Silencing Spell. "You do like him, yes?"

Delacour's smile is sharp, bright, but not predatory. "Oui. Mais, I am unsure-"

"Don't be."

"Non?"

Draco shakes his head. "You should. . ." Suddenly he finds himself uncomfortable. It's not as if this is his area of expertise either. "He doesn't take hints. It has to be obvious."

Her, "I can be obvious," is wryly amused.

Draco takes the Silencer down and talks with her about her career until Potter returns with the invoices and a deeply annoyed look on his face. Draco takes them with a gracious, "Thank you," and escapes to the room where he and Potter often take tea, giving the two some privacy.

Potter can thank him later.

*

Remus sometimes makes hot chocolate with rum in it. Draco likes the strong mix of sugar and bitter distillation, he likes the heady feel of being three sips into a very large mug and already beginning to relax.

Mostly Remus tastes of heat and desire, everything else muted by the two, but after a full mug, he has taken on the hint of sweet and sour. Draco opens his mouth wider, welcomes Remus inside. Remus pulls up and says, "Something new, I think."

Draco doesn't know what that means, but Remus looks wildly anticipatory. So far, the man has proven himself capable of garnering Draco's happiness, and Draco is _more_ that ready for new things. "Yeah, all right."

Remus leads Draco to Remus' bedroom. It might as well be their bedroom, for all that Draco's felt the need to sleep by himself of late. Remus is long and warm in his sleep, and Draco finds it both sexy and comforting. Draco never used to think of those things in tandem, but then, Draco used to never think of werewolves as very unfortunate human beings. It was a relief to find that certain paradigm shifts could be enjoyable.

Remus undresses him, and it's not really slow, not like some of the books he used to snitch off his mum for what he thought might be educational purposes. None of the books had featured two guys, so he'd given up after a bit. Remus goes to undress himself, when Draco--by far the more impatient of the two--digs his wand out of the pile of clothing now puddled on the floor and _divestio_s him.

Remus flashes him a look of disapproval that quickly dissolves into a grin. "Incorrigible."

Draco shrugs. He can be. Remus moves in for another kiss. His cock bumps against Draco's, and Draco says, "Oh," into the kiss.

Remus shifts his hip slightly. Draco tries to remember how to kiss. He thinks he knew just the moment before. Another shift, and Draco says, "Yes."

"I've something better," Remus pants softly.

This seems unlikely, but Remus sounds so sure that Draco waves a vague hand. He can sure try. Remus catches Draco's errant hand and slides to his knees. Draco frowns at the loss of contact. Remus gives his hand a squeeze and then lets it fall from his, moving his hand to cover one of Draco's hips.

Draco pushes his hip forward slightly, into the touch, and suddenly his cock is meeting with Remus' lips, briefly, Remus pressing those lips in for a kiss. Draco repeats himself. "Oh."

Remus' free hand wraps itself tightly, deliciously at the base of Draco's cock. Draco bucks into the touch. "Oh oh oh."

Then Remus' mouth is around his cock, Remus' lips meeting the point where his hand begins. Draco tries to think something coherent, anything, a "good," or a "wow," or an, "oh," but there is nothing. It is all he can manage just to breathe.

Remus drags his tongue on the underside of Draco's cock as he pulls back, only to plunge down again. Draco makes a gurgling noise in the back of his throat. That's the best he has for commentary at the moment.

Remus doesn't seem to mind, his mouth clamping down at Draco's quickened breathing. He stays there, swallowing, until Draco has finished and is struggling not to fall over on him. Remus draws off, and pushes him backward onto the bed. There, he rests on his side, next to Draco. Finally, when speech has once more become a possibility, Draco lets his head roll to that side, and flushes. "Sorry I couldn't-"

"It was your first time," Remus says, apparently unbothered by Draco's complete lack of staying power.

"I want to. Um, I'd like. . ." Draco's eyes wander toward Remus' cock, still ready and waiting. "I thought I'd, well. You were good," Draco finishes, thinking he may have overestimated his readiness to speak.

"I've had practice," Remus says, evidently unconcerned at Draco's lack of skills. "And it will be you. It will feel good, relax."

"That's all the advice you have?" Draco knows he sounds panicky.

Remus, rather than answering, takes Draco's hand and places it over his cock. "This part you have to know."

Draco wraps his hand around the base, just like Remus. He looks into Remus' face. Remus stares back a bit vaguely. "Now you just try your best."

Draco does. He gags the first time he tries to go all the way down to his hand. His teeth press in a little too far at one point. He can't swallow.

The whole thing is a little bit brilliant. If Remus will let him, "I'd like to ah, try again. Maybe tomorrow night."

Remus kisses him. "Whenever."

*

Draco takes Remus' permissive attitude to heart, and chooses to blow him any time that the two of them are in a common room with no obvious onlookers. He borrows Granger's computer and does a bit of (slow) covert research. Draco has always been good at studying and self-improvement when he wishes to be. It's not long before a little bit of concentration and a considerable amount of desire have Draco eschewing his grip at the base of Remus' cock in favor of simply swallowing him down.

The first time Remus says, "Oh, you don't have to-" but he can't finish the thought, and he never again attempts to articulate it.

Remus shows him other things. Draco loves to lie sideways, one hand spread over the uneven skin of Remus' ribcage, another anchored on his thigh, Remus' mouth on him, his mouth on Remus.

Draco also likes providing a show for Remus, nothing but his own hand on his own cock, Remus' gold eyes dark and anticipatory. He tried merely watching Remus, but wasn't patient enough. Which was how he discovered his taste for handjobs.

Somewhere along the way, Draco touches his fingers to the inside of Remus' wrist and begins to understand that all this is real, that he has inadvertently bound himself to a half-breed werewolf twenty years older than him. And that he is happy enough, perhaps even purely happy with the situation. It freaks him out enough that he's useless for anything but cuddling for the rest of the evening. Remus tries to get him to talk about what is going on in his mind, but all Draco can say is, "I'm cold." He is too, but he doesn't think it has anything to do with the temperature in the room.

Remus wraps himself around Draco all the same. He doesn't ask any more questions.

Draco leaves work earlier than usual the next day--which is to say, technically on time--and goes over to Millicent's place. It isn't the first of the month, and he no longer needs her labs, so he can't be offended when she seems a little surprised to see him. She lets him in the door with a reproachful, "Been some time."

"Yes." Draco isn't going to make excuses for himself. He really should come by more often, but he's been busy learning how to have sex. "Sorry.

Millicent lets it go with a negligent wave of her hand. "You have to come to the lab with me. I'm brewing."

Draco follows her into her inner sanctum. She checks a few things before looking up to ask, "What brings you?"

Now that she's asking, Draco considers lying. Thinks about it at length, actually. Answers, "I think I'm. . .emotionally attached to a Gryffindor."

Draco cannot read anything in Millicent's blank expression. She says, "Hermione often tells me that admitting the problem is the first step to fixing it."

"I'm not entirely sure it's a problem." Which is more of an issue than the first part.

"You would be the one to know."

Draco does know, he knows that not only is it not a problem, it's very possibly the best thing he's ever had happen to him. It's an enormous stroke of luck which he undoubtedly does not deserve, but plans to take anyway without much concern over that fact. "It's what accepting that says about me."

Millicent nods a little at that. "But anything it could say has already been said."

Draco just looks at her.

"No Malfoy would come to a Bulstrode for help, let alone gift her with items that are undeniably valuable and personally precious."

"No Malfoy would be a werewolf."

Millicent tilts her head slightly. "Maybe. Both the werewolves I know are really nice, competent people, so, yeah, you're right, probably not."

Draco scowls, but lets that go. "I've spent my life trying not to betray my parents."

Softly, Millicent says, "And look where that got you."

The point hits where it is supposed to, and for a moment, it is all Draco can do to swallow at the tears that want to reach his eyes. Millicent continues, "They can no longer love or hate you, Draco. I can, Remus can, Harry and Hermione and Ron can. But not them."

"So you think. . ."

After waiting a bit, perhaps to see if Draco will finish, Millicent says, "I think you're in love with a Gryffindor."

Draco winces at the sound of the word "love" paired with "Gryffindor" aloud. Millicent, the harpy, isn't done yet, either. "And if it helps, I think it's pretty mutual."

"He, ah, said something like that."

Millicent's smile is free of any mockery. Draco hides his own.

*

Remus throws Draco a surprise party for his birthday. He manages to keep it an actual surprise despite the fact that they live together, have a tendency to accidentally wear each other's clothes at times, drink out of each other's tea mugs, and share items as intimate as toothpaste and shampoo. Draco figures, though, that Remus had one major thing on his side: Draco has never told him when his birthday is, and therefore is not expecting anything to be done for it.

The party features cake and people Draco has come to silently think of as friends, and a few presents. Granger, in the one part of the whole event that is _not_ a surprise, gives him a book. It's a Muggle book about the Arthurian legend. Draco can't remember telling her of his interest in the legend. He did not know Muggles spoke of the legend.

Remus has already given him a home and a dog and a party. Draco is not expecting anything else, but Remus hands him a small box, wrapped in plain, brown paper. Draco puts it aside, and chooses not to open it until the guests have gone away.

Potter brings Delacour. Delacour pulls Draco aside after he's managed to stop blinking and acting like a gobsmacked git--which is pretty much what he is. She says, "Merci."

Potter, who has never been all that hard to work for, has been positively brilliant as a superior for the last couple of weeks. Draco says, "I had ulterior motives."

Delacour shrugs. "Zen I would imagine we both got what we wanted."

She has a point. Potter, from across the room, is looking at them with a nervous smile. Because Potter is too damn easy, Draco leans over and gives her a kiss on the cheek. "You're welcome."

Millicent hands him a card, which he will later learn promises him one free month of Wolfsbane. Potter gives him a broom. Draco looks at the broom, calculates the last bill he saw simply for adjustments to the model and says, "Potter."

"I realize you're probably a bit out of practice, but a few months of regular flying should fix that."

"Potter-"

"I need people to play against."

Draco has noticed that Potter is a little shy when it comes to trying to meet new people. Draco doesn't actually blame him: he sympathizes for entirely different reasons. "But-"

"Nothing, Draco." Potter sounds embarrassed, and like he's considering getting mad. "Take the broom and fly."

Draco, knowing when concerned protests become simply ungracious, says, "Thank you."

Potter grins, always pleased at winning. Draco will have to wipe the grin from his face once he's back on a broom.

The cake is chocolate with strawberry glace lining each layer. Remus made it special for the occasion. After the party, Draco kisses and kisses and kisses him by way of showing his appreciation. Remus tastes like the cake.

*

Draco opens the tiny box when all the guests have left. He cannot say why he waits, except maybe that he wants to thank Remus in a way that requires there be no onlookers. Draco doesn't think he's particularly kinky. At least not that way.

Inside the box is a key. Remus tells him that the key is to the top drawer of Remus' dresser. The one Draco has never tried to open. He has been tempted, but now, at this moment, he's so very glad he resisted temptation. The permission to open it has to be at least one hundred times better than whatever the drawer holds.

Draco unlocks the drawer. Inside, there are blank notebooks, some thin, some thick, at least twenty, probably more. Draco reaches a hand out to touch one, but nothing more than that. Remus says, "I keep a journal. Have since I was a boy. I'd ask that you not read the one I'm currently keeping, but otherwise, well. These have quite a bit about Severus in them. Not always complimentary, but, things you most likely wouldn't know."

Draco can't decide which part of that explanation he wants to concentrate on first. He goes with, "You really trust me to not read the things you don't want me to?"

Remus leans one hip against the dresser and looks at him intently. "Any reason I should do otherwise?"

"Um."

"You're my lover." He sounds a little put out at having to remind Draco of this. "If I can't trust you then I have bigger problems than you reading things I've asked you not to."

Draco supposes that's true enough. There are start and end dates on the top right-hand corner of the first page in every book. Draco is going through them, carefully keeping their order. After nearly a year of keeping Potter's files, he is an expert at how to manage such things.

Finally he finds the ones dated for Remus' school years. Remus says, "All the ones that have Order years include him as well."

"You wrote Order stuff down?"

"It's a lot of code. You'll probably need to ask about most of it."

Draco thinks about that for a second and realizes that this present isn't about trust or even about Severus, although both of those are lovely by-products. Remus is giving them a way to talk about their pasts with each other. Draco does not know when, or even if he'll ever manage to ask the questions Remus has now given him permission to ask, but at least he knows he can.

Draco takes one of the school-related journals out. He places it atop the dresser and kisses Remus. Remus breathes out. "If you want to read anything tonight-"

Draco cuts him off. "That can wait for a night that's not my birthday."

Remus drags his lips over Draco's cheek. "Perfectly brilliant idea by my way of thinking. Want to try something new? For your birthday?"

Unlike before, now there are only a couple of basic things that are new. Both things they haven't done yet, because Draco hasn't been ready. "I-"

Remus can't hide the touch of eagerness in his, "I'll show you how. It'll be simple."

Remus, Draco thinks with more than a little irony, is a good teacher. He leans into Remus further by way of permission.

Remus pulls the two of them back onto the bed, where they make out for a long time, long enough that Draco has nearly forgotten they have the intention of doing anything else. Remus reaches out and swipes something from the side of the bed. That reminds Draco. He says, accusingly, "You planned this."

Remus is unbothered by the accusation. "Happy birthday." He undresses both of them with a flick of his wand.

"Oh, sexy," Draco says.

"I'm impatient," Remus says patiently, settling himself back against the pillows. "Put the lube on your fingers."

Draco knows the mechanics, the theory of it all. He starts with one finger, moving to two when Remus' breath hitches. Three fingers and Draco still hasn't found Remus' prostate but Remus just mutters, "Ready, Draco. Ready."

So Draco slides in, and it's not as smooth as he would have expected but _ohohoh_, the heat and the grasp. Draco hadn't thought there could be anything more beautiful than a blowjob but in hindsight, that was foolish of him. He pulls out and changes angles, again and again, and it's only by mistake that he finds the right one, but Remus' small, "Yes," is enough to make him come.

It's embarrassing, and Draco makes it up to Remus with a particularly good blowjob and some fingering, wherein he targets the exact spot his cock hit upon. Remus doesn't seem too disappointed when Draco wiggles up to lay at his side. He just kisses Draco sloppily on the mouth, buries his head in the crook of Draco's neck and murmurs, "Happy birthday, 'gain," before falling asleep.

Draco tiptoes off for a bit of light reading.

*

Draco makes good headway through the journals, reaching fifth year within a couple of weeks. The encounters that Remus recounts with Severus become harder to read, and yet Draco can't help but feel as if he must. So far, there's an easy explanation for why Severus would have killed either Potter or Black without blinking, but Severus committed sins of refusing to speak up by the score in his Death Eater years, that much Draco knew, so there was no reason for him not to have forgiven Remus.

When Draco reaches the reason, confirming his own suspicions, he has to set the journals aside for a while. Potter notices his distraction in the first couple of days after reading about The Incident, as Remus has labeled it in his writings. Draco is sure Remus has noticed, too. He isn't entirely sure why Remus hasn't brought it up, but Draco isn't ready to do so on his own, so they haven't spoken of it.

Potter asks, "Everything all right?"

The first two days he asks, Draco says, "Brilliant," and "''Course," respectively. The third days he says, "Did you know- Well, were you aware of what began the enmity between Severus and Remus?"

Potter looked uncomfortable. "Erm-"

"He's been telling me things."

"Oh. Oh, well, yes. I know." A pause and then, "Are you, er, that must be something of a shock in your case."

"I keep thinking-" Draco looks away. "I keep thinking what it was like, having Greyback come after me. I was sixteen, too."

"Dra-"

"But then I think about what it would have been like, Greg or Vince betraying me in that way, bearing down on you or Granger, intent on killing you. Waking up with the sure knowledge that I would have if not for fate's intervention. That's even. . ."

Potter nods. Draco knows he doesn't--can't--understand, but he appreciates his willingness to listen. "Severus could be so bloody stubborn at times," he says softly, regretfully. If Severus could have just accepted Remus' apology, the rest of those journals might have told him all sorts of things, things he would now never know. There could have been friendship and confidences rather than the bitter remnants of fear and mistrust.

Draco sighs. It makes perfect sense to him to say, "Thank you for hiring me, that first day," because how else would he have begun to apologize, to accept others' apologies? How else would he have ended up with a roommate? A lover?

Potter blinks. "Er, you're welcome."

*

Draco asks, "You like to fly?"

Remus says, "Not really. Not all that much." He doesn't look at Draco, like Draco might mock him for this. Draco used to make fun of Blaise for his objections to flight, but Draco also used to make fun of Granger for her bloodlines and Potter for having dead parents, so it would be nice of Remus to have a little more faith in him than he's displaying at the moment.

Draco leans one side of his head against the broom that Potter gave him. He polishes it at least once a week, and the handle shines a luxuriant honey-brown color that makes Draco think of Remus' eyes. "Want to come with me anyway?"

Remus does look at him then, curious.

Draco says, "You can hang on tight enough to leave bruises."

Remus isn't particularly violent in bed, not even near the full, but he enjoys leaving his marks, teeth, fingers, nails, whatever. He says, "All right."

Draco always, always covers the scar left from Greyback's teeth scoring along his skin, ripping in and implanting disease. He covers the tattoo, burnt with compulsion and disdain into his forearm. But when Remus has left a small, bloodied half-moon upon his wrist, or a mottled flower-mark of pressure and tongue upon Draco's collarbone, he will find a way to casually have his sleeve fall back, lazily allow his starched collars not to be quite so starched that day.

There are marks of which Draco can be proud.

Remus mounts the broom behind him, the circle of his arms nearly blocking Draco's airways.

Draco kicks them both off the ground. The broom carries them upward with ease.


End file.
